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JOHN M. STAHL 



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M. A. DONOHUE &■ CO. 
PUBLISHERS 
CHICAGO 


COPYRIGHT 1916 
BY 

JOHN M. STAHL 


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©CI,A42741 5*^ 

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CONTENTS. 


Dolly^s Bargain Cigars . 7 

The Traveling Man’s Wife 17 

Gustavus Adolphus 42 

How Joe Helped Harry in His Courting 50 

The Mysterious Woman 62 

Butchering Time 66 

The Three Women 70 

Utilizing the Bath Tub 76 

The Moral of the Six Cylinder 83 

Robert’s Daughter 85 

Common Cheats 88 

The Three Wise Men of Chicago 92 

Her Black Curls 95 


The Spelling Bee at Froggy Corners 122 


V 


I 


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4 


I 


FOREWORD. 


At times I have found a book of 
such size that it could be slipped into 
almost any pocket or tucked into a 
crevice in the hand bag; a book of 
stories of such length that they won 
for themselves a reading, to the pleas- 
ure of the reader, when inertia or las- 
situde or fatigue or whatever one 
chooses to call it, and the inclination 
to read, were on very nearly equal 
terms. 

I have written the stories that follow 
in the hope that to some weary with 
work or care they may furnish, in 
small, broken doses, the good medi- 
cine that for a moment lulls the mind 
and leads to reverie. 

Inasmuch as the stories may have 
no other merit, I would emphasize 
that when, as has been nearly always 
the case, others have done the telling 


or have been most active in the con- 
versation, I have not written that 
they said ‘‘tew’’ for “to’’ or “dun” 
for “done.” 

Also the book has at least this 
merit — it is not a far journey from 
the first page to the last. Here’s hop- 
ing that many may make the journey 
with pleasure to them and profit to 

THE AUTHOR. 


DOLLY^S BARGAIN CIGARS. 


We all knew that there was some- 
thing seriously wrong when Jim came 
into the office yesterday morning. I 
knew what the trouble was as soon, 
as I got near to him, for I do not 
smoke. 

I was deeply concerned, for I have 
known Jim for twenty years and we 
have been good friends from the be- 
ginning. He was thirty-one then and 
already all his friends were certain 
that he would never marry. All the 
girls liked him and he liked all the 
girls — that was just the trouble. He 
was fond of company, especially of 
girls. He was the rare sort that both 
men and women like. The girls re- 
garded him as an elder brother — and 
more. I would not be surprised if 
girls told him things they would be 


8 


JUST STORIES 


afraid to ask their mothers about, and 
he always gave them honest, wise ad- 
vice. He was the very soul of honor, 
as some one has said. I’ve heard him 
say he had never made a good girl 
worse, and I have no idea it ever oc- 
curred to him to make a bad girl bet- 
ter. He was no saint and was far 
from calling himself one. He had 
plenty of the red corpuscles, and his 
religion was being a gentleman ac- 
cording to his definition of a gentle- 
man. 

As I’ve said, as far back as twenty 
years ago, when he was thirty-one, 
we all thought that he would never 
marry. Then about ten years ago 
Dorothy’s family moved to the South 
Side. Dorothy and Jim took to each 
other unusual the first time they met. 
She just fitted to her name. There 
weren’t so many Dorothys then. Her 
people called her Dolly. She was just 
a little plumpish, came scarcely to 
Jim’s shoulder, didn’t care a hang for 


DOLLY’S BARGAIN CIGARS 


9 


Browning or politics, made over her 
hats, and liked a good time. He was 
dark and she had blue eyes and light, 
fluffy hair. Jim always was leader in 
every crowd and Dolly always wanted 
to do what the others did. Still she 
had a lot of quiet temper and when 
she wanted to she could say the most 
cutting things — when it came to 
tongue no one ever made the rent off 
her. And when she did want a thing 
she wanted it and just held on till 
she got it. You know the kind — 
they don’t raise a rumpus, but just 
keep pecking away. 

You’ve probably guessed it right al- 
ready, but we all guessed wrong until 
Charlie Crawford tried to be sweet 
on Dolly. Then Jim woke up and got 
busy and when Jim got busy he went 
some. Jim wanted a quiet home wed- 
ding, but Dolly wanted an Episcopal 
church wedding with every one of the 
fixtures, and that’s the wedding they 
had. 


10 


JUST STORIES 


That was ten years ago, when Jim 
was forty-one. Her folks gave it out 
that Dolly was eighteen, and she cer- 
tainly wasn't more than twenty-one. 
We all wished them well and predicted 
trouble. Dolly was the only girl in 
the family, and pretty. Jim, remem- 
ber, was forty-one. It was a dead 
cinch that trouble was ahead. 

We were all wrong again. Jim was 
young for his years and seemed to 
realize that Dolly was his junior. They 
both liked shows and chop suey. By 
the way, Jim had always mixed some 
wine with the Chinese hash. Jim had 
a good salary — thirty a week. Then 
we noticed that they did not go much 
and 'we gave them up as hopeless 
when Jim II put in an appearance, just 
one day too late to celebrate the first 
anniversary of the wedding. Jim was 
the biggest fool about a baby I ever 
saw. Took it out in a fancy buggy 
and actually dropped beer from his 
lunch and took a bottle of baby booze ! 


DOLLY’S BARGAIN CIGARS 11 


They just kept on living like mar- 
ried people except that they never 
quarreled. They seemed to grow more 
and more like each other. What was 
surprising was that Jim grew more 
like Dolly than Dolly grew like Jim. 
Seemed wrong — she a woman and lit- 
tle and he a man and big. 

They were the happiest people you 
ever saw until about three years ago. 
Then Mrs. Bull got very friendly with 
Dolly. Mrs. Bull is of the deeply re- 
ligious sort. Dolly wanted Jim to go 
to church. Jim said they’d have to 
put blinders on him or he’d shy and 
sashay all over the church, but Jim 
went. Dolly thought they should set 
a good example and not drink wine 
with their chop suey — they had been 
going to shows again for Jim II was 
big enough to leave with the maid — 
Dolly always had Jim phone between 
every act to know if Jim II was all 
right — so they cut out the wine. Jim 
never really swore, but he used some 


12 


JUST STORIES 


near-cuss words, and Dolly kept after 
him until he dropped them as well as 
he could. Mrs. Bull told Dolly there 
were lewd men in Jim’s club and 
straightway Jim’s place in the amen 
corner was for rent. But it seemed to 
be all right with Jim and he just adored 
Dolly and she just worshipped him. 

Then Dolly came to the conclusion 
that using tobacco in any shape or 
form was wasteful, filthy and sinful. 
Jim had smoked ever since he could 
remember and he laid back against the 
britchin’ at once. Finally, just about a 
year ago, it was agreed between them 
that Jim was to stop smoking for a 
year, if he could. Mrs. Bull had told 
Dolly that a man of right principles 
and proper will power could gain the 
mastery over any bad habit and that 
if he did not smoke for a year he would 
lose all desire for tobacco. It was 
agreed that if at the end of the year 
Jim wanted to smoke he could do so. 

Jim stuck it out. We used to feel 


DOLLTS BARGAIN CIGARS 13 


sorry for him, especially as we all 
came back from lunch. We noticed 
that Jim hardly ever joked any more 
and that he had little to say. He 
wasn’t sulky or cross or peeved, but 
just didn’t have much to say. 

Now the year was up day before 
yesterday midnight and when Jim 
came into the office yesterday morn- 
ing I smelled tobacco smoke on him, 
as I intimated at the beginning. The 
others didn’t smell it, for they smoke. 
I haven’t smoked for twenty-four 
years. Had to quit. Poor as I am, 
I’d give five hundred dollars if I could 
have just three mild cigars a day. 

About eleven o’clock Jim and I 
happened to meet in the men’s toilet 
and Jim blurted right out that he was 
going to smoke in spite of hell and 
high water ; that he had gone the limit 
and had been glad to do it, but that 
to cut out the smoke was asking al- 
together too much; and that if Dolly 
didn’t like his smoking she could make 


14 


JUST STORIES 


the best of it. What Jim said was so 
radical Tm not telling it. I was 
shocked. 

Of course the boys and stenogs all 
knew it before noon and we all wanted 
to bet that there was domestic infelic- 
ity of a malignant type ahead — dead- 
oodles of it. On the Q. T. we all 
sympathized with Jim — especially the 
stenogs. 

Of course in some way Dolly knew 
it the second Jim lit his cigar yester- 
day morning, which he did as soon as 
he got to the first cigar stand. Why 
is it that a wife knows everything her 
hubby does and the hubby is of all men 
the most ignorant of what she does? 
Guess a woman must love a man for 
what he does and he loves her for what 
he thinks she is. 

Well, Jim went home last night look- 
ing for trouble all right. He took 
three drinks on the way home and he 
never was a booze fighter. He just 
would have them. 


DOLLY’S BARGAIN CIGARS 15 


He sneaked in, though — he told me 
all about it in the men’s toilet this 
morning — and suffering Jehosaphat ! 
right on the table in the living room 
was a box of cigars. 

Good, smokeable ones, too — three 
sixty-five for fifty. And the box was 
already opened. Dolly remembered 
the brand Jim used to like best and 
she knew where to buy them. He 
gave me one of them — just one. Never 
knew Jim to be stingy of his cigars 
before. 

When he saw the box on the table 
and come to he took it right to Dolly 
and told her he would never smoke 
again — after the handsome way she’d 
done he would never want to smoke or 
do anything she didn’t like. And she 
said she could hardly wait for the year 
to be up and he just had to smoke. 

“I knew Dolly was the greatest 
woman ever was,” declared Jim, “but, 
my God, man, I never knew before — ” 

Jim couldn’t go farther. That big 


16 


JUST STORIES 


fellow actually looked like he was go- 
ing to cry. 

We are all trying to change our bets 
on Jim and Dolly. We are offering 
long odds — and no takers. 

Just now my stenog cut right in 
with, “Say, Dolly made an awful good 
buy when she got those cigars !” 


THE TRAVELING MAN’S WIFE. 

Just when Mac first knew about it, 
or had his suspicions, none of us know. 
It is certain, though, that he hadn’t 
the slightest suspicion for a full year 
after all of us knew about it. It is 
always that way. Let a married wo- 
man get gay and the last man to know 
it is the one that should know it first. 
The reason is, I g^ess, that hubby al- 
ways thinks he is so blanked wise. 
When a man marries he thinks that he 
is considerably more than the average, 
because his wife has made him believe 
that if he hadn’t been the wisest guy 
and most fetching personality and most 
persistent, adroit and courageous 
wooer that ever was, he would never 
have got her — and the poor fool falls 
for it, every time. Oh, I’ll acknowl- 
edge that I was among the worst. A 


18 


JUST STORIES 


girl always works it that way — she 
may have a close guess coming that if 
she doesn’t land the fellow that is going 
without suitable underwear to send her 
roses and candy, that she will never 
land any one, and she may be after that 
fellow so hot that her trail sizzles, 
nevertheless all his married days that 
man believes that he got his cross- 
eyed, sorrel-topped wife solely because 
of colossal ability and efficiency, sheer 
luck, or the favor of benevolent Provi- 
dence, according as he is a business 
man, a commercial traveler, or is re- 
ligious. You’ve heard talk about a 
woman being blind to a man’s faults. 
Well, take it from me, she isn’t. No 
other woman sees them quite as well. 
But after she has made up her mind to 
love him and share his pay check, she 
simply ignores those faults. She 
knows they are there, but she just 
shuts her eyes, as it were. But the 
man, good, old easy mark, can be 
fooled every time by the wife of his 
bosom. He never sees anything wrong 


THE TRAVELING MAN’S WIFE 19 


until another woman gets in the case 
and shows him. Cherchez la femme. 
That’s all the French I know, but it’s 
enough for any human being on earth, 
if he really knows it. If one could 
really know it and always act on it, he 
would be a philosopher, statesman and 
hero. When a man does catch on to 
his wife’s indiscretions it is generally 
because some other woman has been a 
lot more indiscreet with him. And 
when a man falls out with his wife be- 
cause she has gone wrong he wouldn’t 
raise half as much of a fuss if she 
weren’t older than when he married 
her, and always what he is fussing 
about is not what he should raise the 
tempest about — she still has him 
fooled. 

Of course the first intimation any of 
us had that something about Mac’s 
wife was wrong, came from Simpson. 
Simpson always was the first to know 
about such things. Strange how he al- 
ways found out about each and every 


20 


JUST STORIES 


scandal. It didn’t matter if the scandal 
and Simpson were five hundred miles 
apart, he was the one to tell the fel- 
lows that were right there about it. 
Guess he had a sixth sense. Some of 
the boys used to swear that he just 
smelled scandal, but it was more than 
that. Why, when Jimmy Johnson had 
that mix-up with the red headed 
chambermaid in Galveston, Simpson 
knew about it three days after, and all 
the time he was in Northern Illinois — 
his territory went only as far south as 
Springfield and Quincy.' D’Orey, 
Smitzler and Jones were all in Texas 
at the time and not one of them knew 
a thing about it until three months 
afterwards, when they met Simpson at 
the state pow-wow of the M. W. When 
Kent got soused in Omaha and started 
in to shoot up the house and hit one 
of the girls, the first fellow to know 
that the William Smith jugged there 
was really Kent, was Simpson, and 
Simpson was in Burlington, Iowa, at 


THE TRAVELING MAN^S WIFE 21 


the time. That was what made it so 
much more remarkable, for you know 
Burlington is so slow it runs back- 
wards. When Charlie Barrett lost all 
his expense money in that back cor- 
ner fourth floor room in the Hotel Be- 
noit — Mrs. Benoit paid for that hotel 
playing cards with the boys — and tried 
to get out of town without paying his 
bill, Simpson knew it before any of the 
fellows working in that territory. Cer- 
tain animals and birds and bugs are 
nuts too hard for me to crack. How is 
it that as soon as something that ought 
to be buried where it can do no harm, 
begins to smell a little, the buzzards 
that no one has been able to see fly 
right down? A buzzard must be able 
to smell twenty miles. They say that 
when decent men can’t help them- 
selves and get filth on them, like in an 
army, the vermin just come in millions 
out of nothing. And then you know 
there’s an animal — I’ve forgotten its 
name — that would rather dig up and 


22 


JUST STORIES 


feast on rotten stuff than to live de- 
cently, and can smell that sort of stuff 
for miles, even after it is buried. When 
I get time to -write a book I’m going 
to write it on how men are like differ- 
ent animals — some like a Percheron 
and some like a Morgan, some like an 
ox and some like a collie, and some 
like a snake and some like a skunk and 
so on. Believe me, that book will sell 
all right. I know it. I’ve been want- 
ing for fifteen years to get time to 
write it. 

Well, anyhow, Simpson was the first 
man to know that Mac’s wife had gone 
flirtatious. And of course when Simp- 
son knew it, everybody else soon knew 
it — except Mac. Simpson certainly 
beat that dago to wireless. We never 
knew his system and he never gave it 
a name, but it flashed the information 
just the same. 

The question was, what would Mac 
do when he was made wise? We all 
thought that he would be an ugly 


THE TRAVELING MAN'S WIFE 23 


actor. That is why none of us told 
him. He was of the quiet sort, never 
boasted, never quarreled, never car- 
ried a gun, and that's why we were all 
certain he’d kill the man in the case 
sure and likely his wife into the bar- 
gain, as soon as he found out what was 
going on. No one could remember 
having ever heard him say what he 
would do if he found that his wife had 
gone wrong. Of course what a man 
should do in such a case had been dis- 
cussed often enough by us fellows as 
we loafed around the hotels in the 
evening. But so far as we could re- 
member Mac had never said what he 
would do. He had just listened. That 
was his way. He hardly ever said 
much. He just smoked and listened. 
And he never discussed his own affairs. 
So we were all certain that the coro- 
ner would have a job and some of the 
pen pushers a good assignment as soon 
as Mac heard about the shows and 
rides and little quiet dinners pulled off 


24 


JUST STORIES 


by Mrs. Mac and the man that wasn’t 
Mr. Mac. 

Mac was just an average traveling 
man. He wasn’t a saint. He made no 
pretensions. If he went to church it 
was 60 and five to kill the time and the 
balance because he liked music. If he 
could get a customer to order five doz- 
en when perhaps four would be all he 
could reasonably expect to sell, Mac of 
course took the order for five — it was 
his business to sell goods for his house 
and it was up to the customer to keep 
goods from getting old on his shelves. 
Like enough Mac sometimes made the 
traveling man’s mistake and wrote it 
down six gross when it should have 
been only five, but when the house 
writes its travelers to push out a line 
that is getting stale it always makes, 
of course, a special low price on that 
line and to load a customer up with it 
is really doing him a favor. Of course 
Mac sometimes had wrong information 
as to when goods could be shipped, but 
then he wasn’t bossing the shipping 


THE TRAVELING MAN'S WIFE 25 


department of his house — he was sell- 
ing goods, ril never forget how he 
cleaned me out of an order at Gales- 
burg. I had him beat 20 cents a dozen 
on shirts that to old Abrams looked 
exactly as good as Mac’s. The mate- 
rial was identical. Mac got one of my 
samples somehow — of course he had 
some one to steal it, I never found 
out who. That waitress with the kinky 
blonde hair and the scar on her chin 
was so good to me that trip Fve al- 
ways suspicioned her. They must have 
put a corset on that girl when she was 
born instead of the usual band. Once 
some of us held her and measured her 
and she was five times as big around 
her hips as around her waist. That 
was with her clothes on, of course, but 
it was in summer, and making all due 
discounts for the clothes wouldn’t 
change the result. Well, anyhow, Mac 
got one of my samples and took it up 
to Abrams and laid my shirt down on 
his sample, same price, same discounts. 


26 


JUST STORIES 


same dating, and showed Abrams that 
his shirt was half an inch wider than 
mine and that the seams and button 
holes were better and that his was re- 
inforced in places, and Abrams put his 
initials on a total of eleven dozens, 
counting the halves and quarters. It 
took me three years to get the old son 
of Abraham to carry my line. 

As I’ve said, Mac was just an aver- 
age traveling man. That’s giving him 
or any man a fairly good, clean credit 
rating. I know what is said of trav- 
eling men, and it is true of a few, but 
they will stack up with any other class 
of human beings. We see and hear of 
the one that gambles and fights booze, 
and not the ninety-nine that are sober, 
moral and hard working. There never 
was a lodge or church or class of men 
that didn’t have some fabrics that 
wouldn’t wash. Take even the apos- 
tles. One tipped off the game for thir- 
ty plunks, even the best of them went 
to sleep at the switch, the loudest 
mouthed one of the gang was a turn- 


THE TRAVELING MAHS WIFE 27 


coat and liar, and the whole measly 
outfit were quitters, and when Christ 
was crucified they all crawled into 
their holes and tried to pull their holes 
in after them. The only ones that 
stuck were women — the mother and a 
drug store blonde speakeasy. The 
mother that is a mother never does go 
back on her son. The worse the trou- 
ble he is in the closer she sticks to him, 
the more she will do for him. That’s 
the mother of it. You might say that’s 
the woman of it. Let a man be square 
and sober and turn his pay check over 
to his wife regular, and the chances 
are that she will write to him once in 
two weeks if she doesn’t lose his route 
sheet, and give him a fair combing 
down every day he is in. But let him 
be a souse and never earn a dollar and 
beat her up regular, and she’ll take in 
washing to feed his carcass and swear 
him out every time the neighbors have 
him jugged. Women have a streak of 
the dog in them — the more you beat 
them the better they like you and the 


28 


JUST STORIES 


closer they will stick to you. If it 
were allowable for a man to take a 
hickory club and beat his wife the first 
day they were married — beat her just 
as long as he could without actually 
killing her — there would be no domes- 
tic infelicity and the divorce court 
judges would have to do something for 
an honest living. 

Traveling men have a hard lot. I 
don’t mean the high up ones that get 
big salaries and never have their ex- 
pense accounts checked up and make 
only the big places where there are 
first class hotels and shows, but the 
general run of traveling men that make 
nearly all the towns and drive to places 
off the railroad. The worst road in the 
country is the one that goes to your 
customer off the railroad and the day 
you have to make the drive is the 
worst weather of the season. Of course 
the road is so bad no one will take you 
in an auto and they resurrect an old 
buggy that Noah said wasn’t worth 
taking into the ark and two horses 


THE TRAVELING MAN'S WIFE 29 


that lift their hoofs two feet off the 
ground and set them down six inches 
from where they were, and, of course, 
the old buggy breaks down every oth- 
er mile, and when you get to your 
customer's you find that the old wom- 
an has kicked off the covers and he 
has lumbago or some other disease of 
the kidneys and you don't even get to 
show your samples. Then of all the 
crimes against humanity since Eve 
took advantage of Cain’s unclad con- 
dition, the hay barn called a hotel in 
the small town has the game cinched 
and five aces to spare. No other ani- 
mal called man is half as lazy, half as 
independent and impudent, half as or- 
nery, as the fellow that runs the afore- 
mentioned hotel. The only reason he 
lives is that it is easier to breathe than 
not to. The United States language 
has more than eighty thousand words 
— my Vest Pocket Compendium of 
Universal Knowledge says so — and 
one might be able to use it to express 
adequately the poor quality of the grub 


30 


JUST STORIES 


if that grub wasn’t spoiled absolutely 
somehow in the kitchen. At the Clar- 
endon House the gent’s walk is right 
along the kitchen door and once I saw 
the cook frying beef steak and she kept 
trying it and when she could no longer 
cut it she took it off the range and sent 
it to the dining room. Fact. She had 
one leg shorter than the other and it 
was an awful hot day, and as she 
bobbed around the range the sweat 
from her face kept dropping into the 
frying pan. But I don’t think it was 
the sweat that toughened the steak. It 
is just some way these cooks in coun- 
try hotels have of toughening up 
steak. And I never could understand 
how they fry potatoes to make them 
taste like a junk shop smells. One 
time I heard the proprietor of that 
same Clarendon House talking with 
the boss of the livery: 

‘‘Guess I’ll go down to Switzer’s and 
get a box of axle grease,” said the 
boss of the livery. 

“What for?” asked the proprietor. 


THE TRAVELING MAN^S WIFE 31 

“The hind wheels on two of the bug- 
gies won’t turn any more.” 

“Wait a minute. Fll get some but- 
ter. That will be cheaper.” 

Well, they went down into the cel- 
lar and I heard them talking there : 

“This butter is better than what you 
have there,” said the livery man to the 
proprietor. 

“Guess that’s so,” said the propri- 
etor. “Take what you have there for 
the buggies and we’ll use what I have 
on the tables.” 

And the Clarendon House was the 
best for a hundred miles and we all 
tried to Sunday there! 

However, the grub wouldn’t be so 
bad if the rooms weren’t so much 
worse. They aren’t buggy, but I’ve 
known men that had been on the road 
ten years that couldn’t breathe in in- 
sect powder all night without having a 
bad taste the next morning. That 
wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t that 
every one of those towns is dry terri- 
tory. It ought to be in every state 


32 


JUST STORIES 


constitution that when the law puts 
the saloons out of business it compel 
the drug stores to pay at least forty 
cents a gallon for whiskey. Why, one 
night the proprietor of the drug store 
in the corner of that same Clarendon 
House rolled a barrel of his best grade 
whiskey into the cellar and the next 
morning the whiskey was all over the 
floor. Investigation showed that the 
whiskey had eaten through the barrel. 
And wherever it was on the concrete 
floor it made it soupy. The worst fea- 
ture in the rooms of these town hotels 
is the stove. You freeze going to bed 
and some time in the night the stove 
runs the temperature of the room up to 
140 and when you get up in the morn- 
ing you have to take the poker to break 
the ice in the pitcher before you can 
wash. I know some men that carry a 
chisel for that in their grips. 

I tell you the traveling man carries 
a heavy heart under his vest. You 
might not guess it when you saw him 
come in and drop his grips and give 


THE TRAVELING MAN^S WIFE 33 


them a kick and shake hands with the 
proprietor of the hotel and the girl be- 
hind the counter or the news stand and 
yell at the head waitress at the door of 
the dining room and register from Chi- 
cago and ask if there are any wires or 
mail and walk over and buy a cigar 
and light it and look up at the ceiling 
and blow up a lot of smoke and then 
look at the cigar as if he wasn^t sure 
just where the cabbage had been 
grown and it was too infernally bad a 
man couldn't get a decent cigar any 
more west of Chicago, but the chances 
are that all that time the traveling man 
is thinking of the old girl and the kid- 
dies in the $50.00 a month flat, janitor 
service the worst. You see a lot of the 
boys around a square table in the sam- 
ple room playing cards and smoking 
and feeding pennies to the electric pi- 
ano, and you would think they were 
the luckiest, most contented, happiest 
fellows on earth. But they aren't. It's 
a safe bet that every one is thinking 
of his old mother and his wife and the 


34 


JUST STORIES 


baby and wishing he could just sur- 
prise them. You'll hear them say it, 
too, every time. I don't know of any 
lot of men that is more saving or that 
thinks oftener of the family. I remem- 
ber that one night Charley Klein and I 
had to room together at the Claren- 
don. Charley had had bad luck that 
evening — the cards run against him 
right along — and he quit loser $2.80. 
As a general proposition Charley won. 
He was honest, but a good dealer. 
Well, Charley concluded to write to his 
father — his mother was dead and all 
his brothers and sisters had married 
and moved away — and Charley thought 
he ought to write occasionally to his 
father, who was naturally lonesome, 
especially as he was stone deaf and 
could hardly walk and was too blind to 
read. Charley was going to send his 
father two dollars and then he reflect- 
ed that he had a wife and four small 
children and ought to be saving and 
economical and so he sent his father 
only a dollar. I believe that if Charley 


THE TRAVELING MAN’S WIFE 35 


had waited until morning and had 
thought about his wife and four small 
children all night he would have been 
so economical he wouldn’t have sent 
his father anything. 

As a general thing, commercial trav- 
elers are very domestic in their tastes. 
They are great home lovers and 
wouldn’t care if they made less money 
if they could only get a job at any 
honorable work that would let them 
stay at home. Every one of them says 
so. It’s sure pathetic that the men 
that most prize home and family and 
would most appreciate being with the 
wife and children, must spend prac- 
tically all their time in cheerless hotels, 
enduring the hardships of the road, 
among strangers that don’t give a 
whoop whether they live or die! 

And there is no possible way to help 
it as long as a man stays on the road. 
You might think that there is, but 
there isn’t. I never knew a man more 
devoted to his wife than Ed Mann. 
They had no children and that made it 


36 


JUST STORIES 


worse — all the affection of Ed’s big 
heart went right onto his wife alone. 
Ed was always talking about his wife 
and wishing that he could hear of 
some job that would make him a liv- 
ing for his wife and himself, that 
would allow him to live at home in- 
stead of crawling through a miserable 
existence on railroad trains and in ho- 
tels — a traveling man didn’t live, he 
just existed. Ed got home only five 
times a year. Once his house wanted 
him to take territory where he could 
run in for Saturday afternoon and Sun- 
day every two weeks, but he turned it 
down, because that wouldn’t be living 
at home and seeing his wife that often- 
er would only make her feel worse — 
she would hardly be over his having 
to leave until he would be in again. 
Well, do you know, his wife got a job 
on the road herself! She couldn’t just 
stand it away from Ed so much and 
then Ed had a weak back and couldn’t 
unpack and pack his trunks very often 
and as a consequence his sales didn’t 


THE TRAVELING MAN^S WIFE 37 


command much of a salary. Ed's wife 
signed up to sell a line of woman's un- 
derwear and she made the same towns 
he did, so she could be with him all the 
time. Take it from me she was a hus- 
tler and it wasn’t six months until she 
was selling more goods than Ed and 
she helped him with his trunks, too! 
Yet it wasn't at all satisfactory. You 
see it wasn't living at home. A man's 
wife may be with him right along, but 
that doesn't make a hotel anything but 
a hotel. A man may have no other 
happiness to compare with being with 
his wife at home, but on the road it is 
different. Ed's wife was awfully cute 
and full of jokes and she was a good 
pal and went to her room right after 
supper and never said a word when Ed 
played hearts till midnight — there was 
never much money changed hands — of 
course it was just a social game — a 
traveling man never plays for money — 
only just enough to make the game in- 
teresting — and the only thing she did 
was to cry a little when Ed got boiled 


38 


JUST STORIES 


and fell down the stairs. She couldn’t 
have acted better, but she interfered, 
and everybody was glad when she got 
a promotion and better territory. Of 
course Ed stayed. It was pitiful the 
way he missed her, but he just couldn’t 
get any decent job that would let him 
stay at home. 

Mac was a great home lover, though 
he never said so much about it — I’ve 
said that he didn’t talk much. So we 
weren’t so very much surprised when 
all at once he quit the road. He never 
said a word about it — ^just quit. That 
was a good bit Mac’s way. The first 
we knew of it was when he made his 
last trip, introducing his successor to 
his customers. We were just a little 
surprised that when Mac quit the road 
he took up life insurance. Sold it. But 
that isn’t what it used to be. The man 
that has salesmanship makes big 
money at it if he works. Mac made 
good from the start. People knew 
that he was square and that counts 
big in life insurance. It’s work now- 


THE TRAVELING MAN'S WIFE 39 


adays for high class men in every way. 
The old tricks donT go — least ways 
with the new companies. Mac sold a 
lot of us boys — IVe got a policy in his 
company — Farmers’ National Life. 
Was glad to let Mac write me. You 
see his company does business under 
the Indiana compulsory deposit legal 
reserve or compulsory reserve legal 
deposit law, IVe forgotten which, and 
that makes every one of its policies ab- 
solutely safe. Mac put up a new home 
this summer. Says money wouldn’t 
tempt him to go back on the road. 

That’s easy to believe, for, like all 
traveling men, Mac is domestic in his 
tastes — great home lover. Of course 
he had his fun and jokes on the road. 
But he never hung about saloons 
and he read a lot and good stuff — the 
Bible if the Gideons had left one, and 
James Whitcomb Riley and George 
Ade and B. L. T. and Collier’s and the 
Geographic and I never knew another 
man that could quote as much good 
poetry — Pope and Douglas Malloch 


40 


JUST STORIES 


and John Rhuddlau and Amsbary. He 
was no woman-hater, still he was al- 
ways moderate and careful. He was a 
great fellow to josh and jolly the 
chambermaids and the girls in the din- 
ing room, but he never spent as much 
money on them as some did and he 
never drank when he was out with a 
woman — hardly ever took a drink at 
any time — and it was mostly because 
he was so quiet and decent that the 
boys told those stories on him. One 
day Ed Mann was looking for Mac and 
he met Bud Bolling and said to Bud : 

“Seen anything of Mac?” 

“No,” said Bud. “But if you want to 
find him make a noise like a chamber- 
maid — he’ll come running.” 

That wasn’t fair to Mac. Of course 
we knew about the girl at Princeton 
and the one at Macomb and the little 
widow at Rockford and the little 
blonde clerk at Springfield and Isaac, 
Isaac & Sons’ bookkeeper, and of 
course there were others, but what a 
wife doesn’t know never hurts her, 


THE TRAVELING MAN^S WIFE 41 


and, as IVe said, Mac was, like all 
traveling men, domestic in his tastes 
and a great lover of home. 

So you see it wasn’t hard for him to 
reach the decision he did when he 
found out about his wife. He went right 
to her and she owned up to every- 
thing. She hadn’t yet done anything 
wicked and criminal, though she told 
Mac she had planned to do so in her 
heart and believed she would have 
done it actually before a month. But 
when she told Mac how it was — left 
alone day after day and week after 
week, and no one to kiss and hug her 
and take her on his lap and love her, 
and the flat so lonesome she just had 
to go out on the street and to the cheap 
shows and into the parks when the 
band played, Mac proceeded to have 
the right man hug and kiss her right 
there, and he put in a busy afternoon 
besides — he sent in his resignation to 
the house, beat up that other fellow so 
bad he had to be in the hospital three 
weeks before he could leave town, and 
signed up with the Farmers’ National 
Life. 


GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 


The low evening sun on the Lake 
made such beautiful effects that I was 
content to sit down on the bench to 
wait for my train, for by so doing I 
faced the Lake and also had my back 
to the Illinois Central suburban “de- 
pot” that looks like an abandoned Ne- 
braska barn. There could not be a 
better example of Beauty and the 
Beast than Lake Michigan and the Illi- 
nois Central railway, the Beast in this 
case being Hog. Even the covering of 
and apparent fondness for filth is not 
lacking. 

He sat down beside me in a friendly 
way. Likely he did not think of me 
as a total stranger, for I had observed 
him loitering about the station before. 

“Guess the conductor will put me 
off,” he began. 


GUSTAV US ADOLPHUS 


43 


“I don’t understand.” 

“IVe got no nickel and my mother 
lives a long way from here — near to 
South Chicago.” 

“You will try to ride?” 

“Yep.” 

“Why haven’t you a nickel — did you 
lose it?” 

“Nope. Didn’t have none. Mother’s 
awful poor. She’s a widow. Just me 
and her. I’m hungry. Had no dinner. 
Had no breakfast, either. Times are 
awful hard. I’ve been hunting all day 
for a job. Nobody wants me. Say I’m 
too small. Wish I could help mother. 
Were you ever hungry, boss? I’ve been 
to see my aunt. She lives around here. 
She’s rich. She’s awful mean. Didn’t 
give me a bite or a nickel. Didn’t give 
me nothing except sour looks. I’m 
afraid to go home. I’d just as lief be 
in hell.” 

“Hell !” I ejaculated. “What do you 
kflow about hell?” 

“It’s back of the Yards.” 

“Any place else?” 


44 


JUST STORIES 


“Not that I ever heard of.” 

“Where’s heaven?” 

“What’s that?” 

“Heaven. Where’s heaven?” 

“Never heard of it.” 

“Never heard of heaven! Did you 
ever go to church?” 

“Nope.” 

“Ever go to Sunday School?” 

“Nope.” 

“You know a church when you see 
it?” 

“Yep. Get soup there some times.” 

“But you never heard of heaven?” 

“Nope.” 

“Ever hear of God?” 

“Yep. That’s what you cuss by.” 

“Know anything more about God?” 

“Nope.” 

“Did your mother never tell you 
anything about God?” 

“Nope. She’s awfully busy — has to 
do washing.” 

Here was surely an opportunity for 
a missionary. I looked closely at the 
boy. I was skeptical, also puzzled. 


GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS 


45 


His eyes were large, blue, very beau- 
tiful, and if ever there were honest, 
frank, fearless, truthful eyes, his were ! 
His gaze was steady, square into my 
eyes. There was nothing depraved in 
his face or appearance. His face was 
unusually open, childlike, innocent, 
honest. He might be hungry, but he 
was not emaciated. His clothing was 
of good material and it was not badly 
worn. Clearly some kind woman had 
given him the outgrown suit of her lit- 
tle boy. His face and hands and neck 
were very dirty, but if that were a 
crime all real boys would be hung re- 
peatedly early in life. He was really a 
remarkably handsome, attractive little 
fellow. His features were all good. 
His face was unusually intelligent. To 
match up with those frank, honest, 
bright blue eyes, he had really golden 
hair, much inclined to curl, and his 
smile was cheery and compelling. 

‘T dream a lot,” he said abruptly. 
“When a guy is too hungry to sleep he 
dreams a lot.” I was reaching in my 


46 


JUST STORIES 


pocket for all the silver I had, for I can 
never forget how hungry a boy gets, 
but he kept right on, his face, now 
really angelic in its expression, turned 
slightly upward, as if those large, deep 
eyes, now dreamy, saw again his 
dreams among the fleecy white clouds 
in the very blue sky. 

“I dreamed last night. All at once 
three girls, awfully pretty, took hold 
of me and carried me away — right out 
of the house, into the sky, away and 
away oif. They all had on long white 
dresses and they all had long, golden 
hair, curled and curled, and white 
slippers, and white crowns with gold 
bands and stars, and they flew away 
and away with me because they had 
white wings.’^ (“This boy has never 
been at church or Sunday School and 
he knows nothing of heaven,’* I re^ 
fleeted. “Is the conception of angels 
lodged in the primitive mind?”) “And 
we came to a great big hall, as big as 
the Lake, and the ceiling was just like 
the sky, blue and stars, and the walls 


GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS 


47 


were all white mostly, with blue and 
green and red and gold. And the hall 
was just full of tables piled up with 
sandwiches and pickles and pies and 
cakes and candy and nuts and — and 
salads and cold ham and beans and ap- 
ples and corn on the cob and every- 
thing.’' (“Fve read often,” I thought, 
“that starving people dream of ban- 
quets.”) “There were thousands and 
millions of everything. And every- 
where there were guys just like me 
and pretty little girls in white and pink 
and yellow dresses and curly hair and 
low shoes and white stockings, and 
every kid was just eating and eating. 
And we had all kinds of ice cream and 
lemonade and pop, too. And there 
were millions of grown girls, and they 
were all pretty — prettier than you ever 
saw — and they all had on white dresses 
and slippers and they all had long, cur- 
ly hair and white wings — only some 
had wings just like mother of pearl, 
only you could see right through them. 
And they just helped the kids to every- 


48 


JUST STORIES 


thing and everything and kept asking 
us if we wanted anything more. And 
there was music, just like grand opera, 
only you couldn’t see where it came 
from — it was just floating in the air. 
Only there were some of the girls with 
white wings and long dresses that 
sung and some of them had long trum- 
pets and their arms were bare. And 
the boys and the little girls danced and 
you could hug and kiss them. They 
didn’t care a bit. And there were flow- 
ers that made the Rose Garden on the 
Wooded Island look sick and we all 
sung songs and the floor was paved 
with gold and the doors were made of 
diamonds and pearls and ” 

A little girl suddenly appeared 
around the corner of the ‘‘depot.” 

“Dolphus,” she cried as she spied 
the boy, “the officer will get you sure !” 

The boy had disappeared. 

“Dolphus is an ^wful boy,” she ex- 
plained. “He won’t go to school.” 

“You know him then?” 

“Oh, yes, he lives right near here. 


GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS 


49 


His name’s Dolphus — some call him 
Gus.” 

^'Just him'and his widowed mother?” 

‘‘Naw! His mother is no widow — 
she’s married. He has a lot of broth- 
ers. His family is rich, but he won’t 
go to school or stay at home.” 

“He has a lively imagination.” 

“That he has.” 

“He is a good story-teller.” 

“He’s the biggest liar in our school !” 
She reflected a moment. “And take it 
from me, that’s going some.” 

Apparently it was. 


HOW JOE HELPED HARRY IN 
HIS COURTING. 


They were always pals. That they 
were father and son made it remark- 
able enough ; but what was more there 
was more than forty years’ difference 
in their ages. Further, a father is gen- 
erally fonder of a daughter than of a 
son. But while Joe certainly was all 
that a father should be to his two 
daughters, some way his deepest af- 
fection was for Harry, his first born. 
That may have been because Harry 
was weakly — ^he was a puny baby and 
as a small boy he caught all the small 
boy diseases going. Joe said the little 
shaver didn’t seem to have much appe- 
tite for anything except diseases. He 
was sure greedy for them. Joe was a 
great family man and his wife wasn’t. 
Yet they got along well together. They 


JOE HELPS HARRY COURT 51 


didn’t get tired of each other because 
they saw so little of each other. Their 
wishes never crossed because they al- 
ways kept wide apart — ^Joe always 
wanted to stay at home and his wife 
always wanted to go out. You see 
there was no chance for quarrels, for 
the wife went out and Joe stayed at 
home with the children. When they 
were quarantined for measles and diph- 
theria and scarlet fever — of course 
Harry had them all — it was Joe that 
was quarantined, and his wife wasn’t, 
because she was away from home, of 
course, when the disease broke out. 
Guess it was only natural enough that 
Joe and Harry were always pals al- 
though, as I’ve said, Joe was more 
than forty years the older. Perhaps 
that made him all the fonder of Harry, 
for he had no children by his first wife, 
and he was a strong family man. 

It appeared that, year after year, as 
Harry grew older, he and Joe under- 
stood each other perfectly. They never 
had to say much to each other — would 


52 


JUST STORIES 


just be around together without talk- 
ing. Seemed as if Harry would rather 
be with Joe than with boys, and Joe 
was happiest when he was helping 
Harry with his games or studies. 
Harry was of the affectionate sort and 
so was Joe. When Harry was little he 
and Joe were everlasting putting their 
arms around each other and kissing 
each other. And they kept up that 
foolishness as Harry grew up. I used 
to think it was a pity Harry was not 
a girl and I blamed Joe a lot, though 
I didn’t say anything. I was always 
taught to believe that a father should 
make his children obey. Of course 
Harry always obeyed Joe, only it 
seemed like Joe never told Harry to do 
anything. 

Well, Harry went to school, and he 
was a wonder. He was the youngest 
of his class when it graduated from the 
High School in the Opera House — the 
Opera House was over Jacobs & 
Abrams Clothing Emporium then. Joe 
wanted Harry to go to the State Uni- 


JOE HELPS HARRY COURT 53 


versity — or said he did — but Harry 
said he’d rather just go to our own 
home college. He said it would be 
cheaper, and he could help in the store 
at odd times. I believed then, always 
have believed, and always will believe 
that the big reason was that Harry did 
not want to leave Joe. And of course 
Joe really did not want Harry to leave 
home — I don’t care what he said. 
There was some difference of opinion 
about this in the town, but I know that 
I was right. 

So Harry went to college at home 
and Harry and Joe were always to- 
gether, pal like, just like two boys of 
the same age. They played ball and 
pool and checkers and went hunting 
and fishing together, and Joe actually 
started in to going to church again be- 
cause Harry sang in the choir. It was 
said downright that even after Harry 
was in college Joe sometimes scratched 
his back for him when he went to bed, 
just like when he was little! I never 
could quite believe that and I always 


54 


JUST STORIES 


hesitated to ask Joe about it. But one 
of the most reliable women in town 
told that one evening when she was at 
Joe’s house, when Harry was a junior 
in the college, she heard Joe and Harry 
bargain with each other that Joe would 
scratch Harry’s back if Harry would 
scratch Joe’s head. What made that 
appear as if it might really be reason- 
able was that Joe always had dandruff. 

Well, the first break in the two little 
girls’ career of Joe and Harry came 
when Harry began to go with Edytha 
Mae Jones. No one blamed Harry, for 
Edytha Mae was pretty, always 
dressed well, had cute ways, read mag- 
azines, had a piano, and for four years 
the Sunday School had always elected 
her to play the organ. The school was 
proud of that organ. It was the best 
organ in the county. It seemed out of 
place to call it a cottage organ, for it 
was four feet ten inches wide and near- 
ly seven feet high. 

Joe believed in early marriage, he 
liked Edytha Mae, and so when he saw 


JOE HELPS HARRY COURT 55 


Harry walking with her or start out to 
take her for a buggy ride he just smiled 
in a pleased way and went down to 
the store and posted the books. 

Some way Harry didn’t get along 
very fast. Edytha Mae went with him 
more than with any one else, but she 
had other company, and it was plain 
that she liked to have more than one 
young fellow sweet on her. She wasn’t 
exactly a flirt, but she could see no 
harm in having Bill or Jim or Bob buy 
her a soda and Harry buy her candy 
the same evening. Harry had his regu- 
lar dates — Sunday and Thursday — 
Wednesday was prayer meeting night 
— and he was the only one that had 
regular dates, but other fellows were 
almost sure to have a buggy in front 
of Edytha Mae’s house the other nights 
of the week. It was plain that Harry 
was awfully in love with Edytha Mae 
and was getting worried and was los- 
ing appetite and color. And it was just 
as plain that Edytha Mae was thor- 
oughly enjoying her popularity. 


56 


JUST STORIES 


Of course Joe was watching and 
knew how things were going. If Joe 
and Harry had been like ordinary peo- 
ple it would have been the last thing 
in the world one would have mentioned 
to the other, but IVe told you how 
peculiar Joe and Harry were. I never 
learned exactly just how it happened, 
whether Joe took up the subject with 
Harry or Harry with Joe. But any- 
how this much was known certain, 
Harry just broke down and cried and 
told Joe his heart was breaking. And 
they said Joe just hugged him and 
patted his head and back like he was a 
little boy. 

Then Joe said, ‘‘Now look here, boy, 
if you’ll listen to me and do what I 
tell you to do. I’ll bring that girl to 
time.” But when he told Harry that 
he must stop going with Edytha Mae 
steady and take up with some other 
girl, Harry said he just couldn’t do it 
and if he did Edytha Mae never would 
have him, but would go right away and 
marry Prof. Beveridge. Prof. Beve- 


JOE HELPS HARRY COURT 57 


ridge was from Chicago and had come 
to town the fall before to teach in the 
High School. He taught chemistry, 
physics, zoology, geology, geometry 
and astronomy. He was the first 
teacher in the High School to teach 
astronomy. 

But Joe stuck to his proposition. 
‘'Who's Edytha Mae’s chum?” he 
asked. “Mary Baldwin,” said Harry. 
“I thought so,” said Joe. “And now, 
boy. I’ve never put you on a wrong 
trail yet. I’ll have your mother invite 
the Baldwins down to dinner right 
away and after dinner you take Mary 
out riding. I believe we’ve owed the 
Baldwins a dinner for nearly a year.” 
(That was a safe bet, also that they 
owed everybody else in their set a din- 
ner, Joe’s wife being away from home 
so much.) 

Well, the Baldwins came to dinner. 
Mary was a pretty girl with a lovely 
disposition and she and Harry’s sisters 
were good friends, anyway. And after 
dinner Harry took Mary for a ride. 


58 


JUST STORIES 


The next morning Edytha Mae was 
down to the store to buy some thread 
almost as soon as the store was open. 
And Joe had Harry make out some 
bills while he waited on Edytha Mae. 

Joe undoubtedly had the hardest job 
with Harry he ever had, to keep him 
away from Edytha Mae and have him 
go with Mary Baldwin and other girls. 
He just had to lay down the law to 
Harry every day. He let Harry go 
with Edytha Mae occasionally — as 
often as he went with some other girls 
— and he just made him go with Mary 
Baldwin once every week. 

‘*As long as you tag after a girl and 
she thinks she has you dead to rights,” 
said Joe to Harry, ‘'she’ll never say yes 
in this world to your marry-me inter- 
rogatory. A girl never wants a man 
she is sure of. The only way to make 
a cinch of the game of love making to 
a girl is to make her jealous of her 
chum. You’ve got to play sweet on 
the other girl.” 

Of course at first Harry just went up 


JOE HELPS HARRY COURT 59 


in the air and declared he just couldn’t 
do it and that as sure as he did Edytha 
Mae would never have anything to do 
with him and would marry Prof. Bev- 
eridge and he just couldn’t stand it. 
But Joe is mighty persistent and he 
held Harry to his job all summer. He 
and Joe — mostly Joe — played it fine. 
Harry soon got to going rather regular 
with Mary, but he went some with 
other girls, and about once so often he 
called in a friendly way on Edytha Mae 
or took her riding. And you should 
have seen how Edytha Mae went after 
him. She’d pretend not to care and 
would hardly see him on the street, 
and then she would almost court him. 
I almost pitied her. Of course at the 
time I did not fully understand that it 
was all a game Joe was having Harry 
play to bring Edytha Mae to time. It 
was a slick game. Joe always did have 
a long head. And he invited me him- 
self to Harry’s wedding. Of course I 
got one of the printed invitations when 
they were sent out. I was among the 


60 


JUST STORIES 


very first invited. But that was not 
strange, for Joe and I were always ex- 
tra good friends. From the time Joe 
opened his store I always traded with 
him. I knew well enough at times that 
I could do a little better elsewhere, 
especially on sugar and coffee, and he 
always was high on nails, but where 
I gained on one thing I might lose on. 
another, and Joe was always honest on 
his weights and measures. Once in 
figuring up my bill Joe made a mistake 
of ten cents against me. I never no- 
ticed it. Fm careless that way. Never 
would have known it. Joe had figured 
on the top sheet of the heavy wrap- 
ping paper — in the grocery department 
— and happened to notice the mistake 
and he walked right out of the store 
and hunted me up to give me that ten 
cents. Joe always was — 

What’s that you asked? Harry and 
Edytha Mae happy? Oh, yes, I forgot 
to tell you. Harry didn’t marry 
Edytha Mae after all — he married 
Mary. Fell dead in love with her. 


JOE HELPS HARRY COURT 61 


They Ve been married nearly two years 
— beat Edytha Mae to it by four 
months. She took Prof. Beveridge. 
Both very happy marriages — only 
Edytha Mae hasn’t very good health. 
You should just see Harry and Mary 
— never saw two people more con- 
tented and satisfied — they call their 
twins Mary and Joe. 


THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN. 


Morning after morning we two got 
off the same northbound Illinois Cen- 
tral suburban train at 36th street and, 
men like, hurried to our offices without 
even so much as nodding at each other. 

And morning after morning there 
got on that same train at 36th street 
a fellow less than commonplace, insig- 
nificant, weakling at every point. 

We noticed him because each morn- 
ing as he shuffled onto the rear plat- 
form of the last car a young woman 
stood on the station platform and 
smiled and waved at him as the train 
pulled out. She did this unabashed; 
in fact, as if proud to do it. He 
neither smiled nor waved at her — he 
seemed to shrink yet smaller within 
his clothes and clearly he feared that 
someone might notice her frank, hon- 
est display of affection. 


THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN 63 


I don’t know the color of her eyes or 
the shape of her nose — her face was of 
the kind that one does not stop to 
analyze. I believe that her hair was 
dark. I do know that she was 
very beautiful — frank, honest, spark- 
ling eyes; rosy, glowing cheeks; the 
sunniest smile ! — so wholesome and 
hearty and healthy and radiant ! I no- 
ticed that if there was a child on the 
platform it always smiled at her. And 
if she saw it of course she smiled 
at it. 

We observed that always her face 
beamed and was smiling while turned 
toward him, but that when she turned 
away the smile at once faded and plain- 
ly disappointment and uneasiness took 
its place. 

One morning a happy-faced, placid 
old woman, waiting on the station plat- 
form, must have noticed this, for she 
went up to the girl and spoke to her 
in a cheery greeting. But that morn- 
ing as she left the station there were 
tears on her cheeks. 


64 


JUST STORIES 


It must have been last March that 
we first noticed the girl — it was when 
the wind from the lake is chilliest and 
rawest, I remember. 

We have not seen the girl for nearly 
two months now. During the late 
summer she did not come to the sta- 
tion quite every morning, and when 
she did come she did not always wave 
at that libel on a man, and her smile 
scarce moved her lips at times. 

As I have said, we have not seen her 
at all for two months now. We two 
men never spoke, but morning after 
morning we looked for that girl and 
then always we looked at each other. 

When she no longer came I won- 
dered if she had given it up as a bad 
job — neither appreciation nor pay; or 
had gone to visit a mother — doubtless 
happy-faced and placid; or — ^‘‘and that 
slouchy, slouching boob for its dad,” I 
thought. 

ril never know her name, but really 
rd like to know. 


THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN 65 


This morning the other fellow spoke 
to me. 

“Guess she has given it up for good 
— that cussed fool shrimp didn't have 
sense enough to know.” 

We walked through the station. 
Then I said: 

“That's my bet, but then there might 
be three impending.'' 

“Hoot, mon!” he exclaimed. “She's 
just the God-blessed old-fashioned kind 
that would want one.” 

We walked half a block in silence. 
Then he kicked viciously at something 
invisible on the sidewalk and said fer- 
vently — and there was also profound 
sadness in his voice — 

“Men ought to kiss their wives a lot 
more than they do.” 

And I was thinking that very thing 
myself. 


BUTCHERING TIME. 


We sat about the table that was both 
lunch and council table — the Doctor, 
the Banker, the Actuary and the 
Editor. 

None of us can remember what sug- 
gested it, but we all remember that the 
Banker said — 

“Used to get up at three in the morn- 
ing to start the fires under the kettles.** 

“Had two big iron kettles,” said the 
Editor. 

“Neighbors helped — boys all came,** 
said the Actuary. 

“A boy always held the lantern while 
they ground the knives,** said the Doc- 
tor. 

“Scalded them in a big hogshead,** 
said the Banker. 

“Scraped them with corn knives,** 
said the Editor. 


BUTCHERING TIME. 


67 


‘^Except around the ears and two or 
three other places — had to use a knife 
to make a good job/' said the Actuary. 

‘*Set the hair if the water was too 
hot/' said the Doctor. 

“Generally tilted the hogshead 
against the end of a sled/' said the 
Banker. 

“Best to stake the sled down," said 
the Editor. 

“Remember how slippery the boards 
on the sled used to get?" said the 
Actuary. 

“Remember how they dissected out 
the spare ribs?" asked the Doctor. 

“Left some meat on them then," said 
the Banker. 

“Had back bones then, too," said the 
Editor. 

“Marrow in them," said the Actuary. 

“Made souse," said the Doctor. 

“And head pudding," said the 
Banker. 

“Remember the pig’s feet?" asked 
the Editor. 

“Best just boiled," said the Actuary. 


68 


JUST STORIES 


**But the sausage, by gosh !” said the 
Doctor. 

‘‘Always made the sausage at night,” 
said the Banker. 

“Great fun to feed the grinder,” said 
the Editor. 

“The mixing was the greatest fun 
of all,” said the Actuary. 

“Always did that in a tub,” said the 
Doctor. 

“Fellow got down on his knees with 
his sleeves rolled up,” said the Banker. 

“Remember the jokes always about 
his arms being clean,” said the Editor. 

“And about his having cleaned his 
nails,” said the Actuary. 

“And some one always pretended he 
wanted to get in with his feet,” said 
the Doctor. 

“Always put sage in,” said the 
Banker. 

“Just sage and salt and pepper,” said 
the Editor. 

“Anything else spoils it,” said the 
Actuary. 

“Remember they always had to fry 


BUTCHERING TIME. 


69 


some to see if it was right/* said the 
Doctor. 

“Boys always ate so much they were 
sick, only you can't make a boy sick 
on such sausage — don't care if he eats 
a peck," continued the Doctor. 

“Remember the bladders?" said the 
Banker. 

“Blowed them up," said the Editor. 

“You're wanted on the 'phone at 
once, sir," said the office boy to the 
Actuary. 

“Oh, cuss it all anyhow!" said the 
Actuary, as he shoved his chair back 
to the wall. 

“Same here!" said the Doctor. 

“Count my vote," said the Banker. 

“It's unanimous," said the Editor. 

And for an hour four very busy men 
found it much easier to look out of the 
window and do nothing — but think — 
than to attend to urgent business. 


THE THREE WOMEN. 


The coffin was covered with white 
cloth and there was a hearse and two 
other vehicles; for the babe that was 
dead lay in the home of one of the 
richest of the neighborhood, and, as in 
all neighborhoods of the very poor, 
people were most surely and definitely 
rated by the expense and show of the 
funerals they provided for loved ones. 

As I had walked the three blocks 
from the street car I had not been able 
to see any grass anywhere. If the 
buildings did not join to one another, 
there was between them only narrow, 
dark passageways paved with black, 
broken boards. If the buildings did 
not meet the sidewalks, the very shal- 
low yards were trampled, bare earth. 
Nearly all the buildings were of wood, 
unpainted, dingy, grimy. The only 
bright spots were the saloons, with 


THE THREE WOMEN 


71 


gaudy pictures and many bottles in the 
windows, and a “Family Entrance” in 
the rear. Pathetic evidence of a funda- 
mental yearning were the plants in a 
surprising number of the windows 
of the otherwise desolate dwellings. 
Nearly all of these plants were rooted 
in tin cans wrapped about with green 
or yellow paper held in place by red 
tape. I had observed it and been 
amused by it many times before, but I 
was none the less amused again as I 
noted that, no matter how mean and 
grimy the building, no matter how 
stamped of poverty the dwelling in all 
ways, every front window boasted of 
“lace” curtains. Some of them were 
of such texture and open design that 
they were hardly short of marvelous. 

I made an even score of persons 
crowded into the “parlor” — ^bare of 
floor, but, unfortunately, not bare the 
walls. Near the center was the little 
white coflin. 

When my eyes had so mastered the 
dim light that I could see distinctly, I 


72 


JUST STORIES 


observed, with almost a shock, three 
women crouched, rather than seated, 
near together. Their attitude was elo- 
quent of deep sorrow. 

One was the mother of the dead 
babe. 

The second had, I knew, in two rear 
basement rooms, ten children, the old- 
est fifteen and defective, the next four- 
teen and a cripple — crippled, it was 
said, when a little child by the blows 
of the drunken father. I know not 
why, but I asked myself if this family 
had had any breakfast that day. Later 
I knew that they had not, nor had they 
had supper the night before. Yet 
death had never knocked at the door of 
that home. 

The third woman was dressed so 
plainly indeed that a man might have 
thought she was a neighbor. I knew 
that she was rich and lived among the 
rich. I knew that very, very few 
women had as she had — and always 
since she had grown past little girl- 
hood — a heart hunger, a yearning that 


THE THREE WOMEN 


73 


was almost agony, for a strong, tender 
man and pink, plump, sleepy babes. I 
could but dimly conceive of her feeling 
as she saw pampered women whose 
care was to keep the stork away as it 
was also their care to nurse and kiss 
dogs. She had never been strikingly 
beautiful, but she had always been 
beautiful. She was certainly intelli- 
gent and companionable and good. It 
was said of her that she “made friends 
everywhere.'* Yet she was an old 
maid! Who can explain why such a 
woman, who would make such a good 
companion and wife, remains unmar- 
ried because no man desires her? 
Many knew her as one whose pen 
wrote beautiful verse and also stirring 
prose. Some knew her as a member 
of clubs and a positive factor in “move- 
ments.** A few of us knew her as a 
tireless bearer of wise gifts and heart 
cheer to the poor and lonely and for- 
saken and desperate — a silent doer of 
much good, fearing nothing day or 


74 


JUST STORIES 


night where strong men hesitated to 
venture — fearing only that the good 
she did might be advertised. 

How often in the night, when utter 
fatigue brought sleep, had gracious 
dreams permitted her to hug to her 
breast her babe — her babe unborn, her 
babe never to be born! And then to 
wake, to sob out alone in the darkness, 
her sorrow and pain! Some of this I 
had guessed, and she, knowing that I 
had guessed, had confessed the little 
that made me sure of so much more. 
So strong was her mother desire and 
love that she could not take the child 
of another as her own. 

Which of the three, think you, suf- 
fered the keenest pain as they sat there 
and gazed on the little white coffin? 

Whose heart ached most? 

Which one of the three was it, as 
they prayed to God that night, lay 
prone, beating with her clenched hands 
and clutching at her breast, in sheer 
agony ? 

Which woke with a piteous moan as 


THE THREE WOMEN 


75 


the gray light of the morning touched 
her window? 

Which one of the three, as she 
thought of the future, had most need of 
the tenderly upholding arms of God’s 
ministering angels? 

Which one of the three? 


UTILIZING THE BATH TUB. 


I had answered a "‘blind’" ad. of “a 
real equity in a modern, well located 
residence property to exchange for 
Michigan land,” and had received in 
reply instructions to call at such a 
number of such a street to see the 
property and talk with the owner. 

The property was located in a poor 
section of the “South Side,” Chicago. 
The only modern thing I could observe 
in the neighborhood was the asphalt 
street paving. 

The houses were nearly all of wood 
and built out to the sidewalk or nearly 
so. The exteriors were dingy and 
dirty. Evidently they had been erected 
before the street had been brought to 
its present level. To reach the first 
floor of most of them one must descend 
eight or ten steps from the sidewalk. 
The first story of some had been con- 


UTILIZING BATH TUB 


77 


verted into a basement and one entered 
these houses by going up a few steps 
from the sidewalk. 

Of this second type was the “resi- 
dence property” I sought. The gable 
was to the street. There was no ex- 
ternal ornament. 

My ring brought to the door a very 
muscular, vigorous, good looking wo- 
man of middle age, health in her bright 
eyes, health in her full, rosy cheeks, 
strength in her bare arms. She was 
washing clothes and the garments 
were being dried in two of the three 
rooms on that floor — the tubs were in 
the third. Clearly the house was too 
near the railway tracks and factories 
to permit the drying of the clothes out 
of doors. 

I stated the object of my call. The 
lady of the house motioned me to a 
chair with rare grace and courtesy and 
then called, “Mr. Baldwin — Mr. Bald- 
win.” 

Mr. Baldwin came from a rear porch. 
He walked slowly. The heels of his 


78 


JUST STORIES 


shoes rasped along the floor. He 
lacked both fat and muscle. No need 
of his telling me that he was rarely 
well. I knew that — also that from the 
hour of his birth he had been tired. 
But he would not talk of anything else 
until he had spent all of fifteen minutes 
in telling me of his ills and misfor- 
tunes. 

Mrs. Baldwin had returned at once 
to her washing. 

Mr. Baldwin recited — as it was plain 
he had recited many times before — that 
he had never been strong; never could 
work like other men; with his wife^s 
share in her father’s estate they had 
bought this property; the neighbor- 
hood hadn’t built up right; then he 
always had poor luck holding a job — 
always was weakly — never could pala- 
ver the boss like some men — and to 
live they just had to borrow and then 
they had to put a mortgage on the 
house ; they had fallen behind with the 
interest; then the street had been 
paved — and with asphalt — a friend of 


UTILIZING BATH TUB 


79 


the alderman wanted a contract and of 
course got it and made big money; 
they hadn^t a dollar with which to 
pay the special assessment; his wife 
wanted to get on a little piece of land 
in Michigan, where she lived before 
she was married ; there was big money 
in poultry. 

He took me through the house to 
show me the rear yard. On an un- 
roofed rear porch were sprawled two 
husky, grown boys, muscular and 
strong and inclined to fat, reading 
paper bound books. I looked inquir- 
ingly. They were his sons ; neither had 
work just then; some way when they 
did get a job the boss was always 
against them; a young man had no 
chance in Chicago; unless he had a 
relative or friend somewheres in the 
establishment he was never paid what 
his work was worth ; others that didn’t 
deserve it were the ones moved up; 
unless a man had money nowadays 
he was not better than a dog; yes, a 
woman could always get work now; 


80 


JUST STORIES 


looked like a girl was better off now 
than a boy; she was; a woman could 
get work when a man couldn’t. 

One of the boys laid down his book, 
stretched, yawned, rolled a cigarette. 
He looked at his mother, grinding 
some heavy garment through the 
wringer. He again took up his book. 

I expressed some little doubt about 
the building being “modern.” I was 
assured that it was. It had sewer con- 
nections, only just then there was 
something wrong with the drain pipe 
— it was choked up. Plumbers charged 
five prices and then didn’t do their 
work. The building had gas, and a 
bath room. And the door of the bath 
room was pushed open triumphantly. 

In the dim light of that room I did 
not at once see the bath tub. It was of 
zinc, boarded about. It was filled with 
something, and on that something were 
a sheet, a gray blanket, and a pillow. 

“Mother has roomers,” explained 
Mr. Baldwin. “We are crowded some, 
so one of my sons sleeps in the bath 


UTILIZING BATH TUB 


81 


tub — none of us except mother ever 
took to a tub for a bath. People bathe 
too much — lets the disease in the air 
get into them.” 

Mrs. Baldwin was singing, and re- 
markably well, 

‘‘There is a land of pure delight, 

Where saints immortal reign.” 

I had a glimpse of her rapt face, but 
she saw not me, nor the tubs, nor the 
clothes she was putting on the line, but 
a white wooden church somewhere in 
Michigan ; men seated on one side and 
women on the other of the broad aisle, 
so rigid that the least movement was 
plainly audible; the minister looking 
solemnly at his big silver watch, then 
rising deliberately to “line out” the 
opening hymn ; a young woman, beau- 
tiful, full of health and energy, con- 
scious through all the service of a 
young man seated across the aisle — a 
young man that in some way concealed 
from her that he was always tired, and 
who, even yet, after twenty years and 
more, was in her eyes without fault ! 


82 


JUST STORIES 


Oh, greatest of all miracles, a wo- 
man’s love! Oh, greatest of all treas- 
ures, so often misprized, a woman’s 
love! 

As I passed out of the door a strong, 
joyful, triumphant voice followed me — 
‘‘There everlasting spring abides. 
And never fading flowers.” 


THE MORAL OF THE SIX- 
CYLINDER. 


She doesn't go to a public school. 
What school she does go to is not im- 
portant, but Fm not saying that it is a 
thousand miles from Kenwood, Chi- 
cago. 

Most people say that she is pretty, 
and all say what a very bright, attrac- 
tive little face she has. She has dainty 
ways, and always gives up her seat in 
the street car, and everybody smiles 
at her. 

Unfortunately her Mamma — and 
Daddy always thinks that Mother is 
exactly right about everything — has 
some old fashioned, ridiculous, embar- 
rassing, disagreeable notions. She 
does not think that little girls should 
wear jewelry or expensive clothes. She 
has pronounced views on little girls 


84 


JUST STORIES 


being little girls. Hence while this lit- 
tle girl is neat and clean and her frocks 
are up-to-date and fit nicely, she has 
never been fully admitted into that de- 
lectable little circle that has fussy 
dresses and rings and talks in such a 
provoking way about parties and 
shows and the boys. 

This little girl's father is not a mil- 
lionaire, but he has a fair store of this 
world's goods. 

He keeps two automobiles. But that 
awful mother believes in out-of-doors 
and exercise, and the little girl had to 
walk across the Midway every time to 
or from school. Some mothers are so 
utterly unreasonable and exasperating ! 

Recently this little girl, who has 
scarcely ever known what it was to be 
sick for an hour, had a severe cold and 
the weather was bad. She was taken 
to school in the big six-cylinder car. 

And since then she has been of the 
elect. 

Moral. — The protruding moral — al- 
ways send your hopefuls to school in a 
limousine — is, of course, immoral. 

The real moral — there isn't any. 


ROBERT’S DAUGHTER. 


As we got off the 1. C. Suburban at 
36th street I noticed a band of crape 
around his sleeve. ‘‘Belongs to the 
August Sublimated Salivated Order of 
Blue Jays or something like — and he 
may be the Grand and Sublime Most 
Exalted High Roustabout thereof,” I 
said to myself. 

“Oldest member of our lodge buried 
yesterday — oldest in years — and one of 
the charter members,” he volunteered, 
in a friendly tone. “One of the solidest 
members we had, too,” he continued, 
“though he hardly ever attended a 
meeting.” 

“Yes?” 

“Yes, and something funny hap- 
pened at the funeral. You see Com- 
rade Robert always stuck mighty close 
to business. He never was of the ven- 
turesome sort. Never would take big 


86 


JUST STORIES 


chances. Never would borrow much. 
So his business never got big as big is 
called now. Then he had five children. 
Big mistake for a man of his ideas. 
He was indulgent. Girls all had music 
lessons, piano— all that sort of thing. 
By jolly, even the boys took dancing 
lessons. Gave every child a college 
education. You see his living expenses 
were so big he never could get ahead 
much. Always lacked capital. DidnT 
look far enough — missed some good 
chances. Some way his family never 
seemed to think how the money came. 
Kind and loving to him, but no busi- 
ness sense, not even the boys. He just 
worked himself out. He always stayed 
down Saturday afternoons and never 
took a day oflP. Don’t suppose he’d 
had a vacation for more than twenty 
years. Was great to hunt and fish 
when he was young — luckiest feller to 
fish I ever knew — good shot, too — one 
day him and me — ” 

We had reached the corner where I 


ROBERTS DAUGHTER 


87 


turned west. ‘‘What was amusing at 
the funeral?’* I asked. 

“Nothing amusing. Only funny. I 
was getting to that. The youngest 
was a girl and she was his favorite. 
Always called her his baby. She felt 
awful bad and made a good deal of 
noise crying around. To make her feel 
better old Joe Wood told her of the 
good times him and her dad had had 
together when they were both young 
— dances and horseback riding and 
fishing and hunting. And she looked 
so surprised and sorter stammered out, 
‘Daddy fished — hunted? We never — 
Daddy always worked — just worked — 
and, oh, oh, it’s too late now.* 

“And she stopped crying right then. 
Looked like she felt too bad to make 
a noise. She just got quiet and as 
white as chalk. She just set there, 
white and staring. Downright funny, 
wasn’t it?** 


COMMON CHEATS. 


“Strange how some people are al- 
ways cheating themselves,” he re- 
marked in a friendly way as we got off 
the 1. C. Suburban at 36th street to- 
gether. “The best friend I have is to- 
day wearing one of those shirts of a 
thousand pleats. He bought two when 
they were the fad and kept saving 
them for state occasions and now he 
has to wear them out when they look 
odd. Bet you that right now he has 
tucked away in a corner of the dresser 
drawer the white silk socks his wife 
bought for him last spring. He will 
save them until everyone else is wear- 
ing colored socks. He always wears 
socks that look old and like no one else 
is wearing. He buys as many hats as 
anybody, but instead of putting on a 
new hat and wearing it, he saves it 
until it is out of style. His Sunday hat 


COMMON CHEATS 


89 


is always shaped like the lids all the 
other boys are wearing to work. Be- 
cause he doesn’t start in to wear out an 
overcoat as soon as he buys it, he al- 
ways wears one down to his heels 
when the style is so short you can’t sit 
down on it. Just because he is ever- 
lastingly saving his good clothes he is 
never well dressed. But he has to 
wear just as many clothes as anybody. 
He cheats himself right along. I know 
another fellow — a downright good fel- 
low — that cheats himself in another 
way. He really isn’t stingy, but he 
never has but one pair of sleeve but- 
tons and two collar buttons and every 
year he loses enough time changing 
those buttons every time he goes out in 
the evening or to church and in hunt- 
ing for it when he happens to drop 
one, to make a good vacation. He has 
only one pair of suspenders and has to 
change them every time he changes 
his trousers. He’s as bad as the fel- 
low that is always cheating himself 
out of time by saving and hunting 


90 


JUST STORIES 


string and that uses stamps that have 
no stickumstuff. Another fellow I know 
cheats himself out of a lot of time 
changing all his clothes, even his trou- 
sers and shoes, whenever he goes to 
the basement to fix the furnace. 
Wastes more time twice over changing 
his clothes than it takes to fix the 
furnace. Wastes time worth twenty 
times what he saves on his duds. Then 
another fellow I know cheats himself 
on shows. Say the best seats are two 
dollars per and good ones are one-fifty 
and the dinky ones away up there are 
a dollar even. He buys the dollar 
seats every time and can’t see well and 
misses nearly all the jokes because he 
can’t hear away up there. I’d rather 
not go to a show at all. He’d lots 
better go to fewer shows and put his 
body where he can hear and see. But 
the biggest fool self-cheaters of all I 
know are some fellows that drink 
whisky and beer. They know it 
doesn’t do them any good — only hurts 
them — and they don’t like the taste of 


COMMON CHEATS 


91 


it, either. Can’t put it down without 
making a face. I heard one of them 
say once, and I know it was straight, 
he’d about as soon take a dose of medi- 
cine as a drink of straight whisky. 
They seem to think they can’t have a 
good time unless they booze. Come 
to think of it, don’t know that they’re 
any worse than the fellow that knows 
a sensible, loving girl and thinks he 
don’t make enough to marry. Blows 
two-thirds of his money right along on 
things he don’t need to live. Spends 
as much as the rent of a kitchenette flat 
for fool things for that girl — candy and 
flowers and shows. She’d a blessed 
sight rather have him save his money 
till he had enough to buy some furni- 
ture and then the two hook up. He’s 
cheating the girl all right and he’s 
cheating himself worse. Oh, you go 
west? — all right— so long, brother.” 


THE THREE WISE MEN OF 
CHICAGO. 


We got off the Illinois Central su- 
burban train at 36th street together. 
Clearly the fates had not been either 
very kind or very unkind to him, ex- 
cept that they had given him that 
greatest of treasures, often mistaken 
for sublime courage — man^s best friend 
and surest comforter — a sense of hu- 
mor. 

We walked almost side by side. He 
chuckled. There must have been plain 
inquiry on my face, for he said : 

“A friend told me a good one last 
night.’" He laughed outright. “And 
it was on himself.” He laughed heart- 
ily. 

I put up my guard. I do not like 
obscene stories and I detest stale ones. 

“You see he is one of our most suc- 
cessful and prominent business men. 


THREE WISE MEN OF CHICAGO 93 


His old man left him a big wad and 
he has made it grow. At his desk 
every morning at eight. But he^s stuc- 
co all around — you oughta see his own 
stenog, his boy keeps an auto at Yale, 
the missis goes heavy on the Lying-in 
and home garden stuff — they’re going 
to have a swell place at Lake Forest. 

‘‘He’s the last fellow in the world 
you’d put your long green on for Mr. 
Easy Mark. But last night — rather 
this morning — he’s been short on De- 
cember — he paid for a few corks — and 
then he let it out. And he gave the 
other two suckers away, too. 

“They’ve dropped just $118,000 on a 
fool proposition to make needles some- 
where in Minnesota. War’s stopped 
the needle supply — and so on and so 
on. 

“Can you beat it! 

“The whole 118,000 plunks is gone 
clean — bait, line and sinker. 

“And the other two are shining ex- 
amples of our self-made millionaires. 

“Can you beat it!” 


94 


JUST STORIES 


He had to laugh for all of thirty 
seconds. 

German count got the money. 
He trimmed them clean, and they can’t 
even squeal.” 

“What became of the money?” 

“They don’t know. 

“The little kaiser kept his accounts 
on his cuffs and laundered his shirt 
every Saturday night. 

“Say, brother, can you beat it ! 

“There are three of the prominent 
financiers of old Chi that are pulling 
hard for the awtant corduall. 

“If you want to start something go- 
ing fast and hard in their vicinity, 
just boo German ! 

“And they’re the kind that head all 
the subscription lists printed in the 
papers and think that the poor farmers 
are signing lightning rod contracts. 

“O say, brother, can you beat it 1” 


HER BLACK CURLS* 


She had the blackest curls I ever 
saw. Seemed like they ought to have 
been brown, for she had brown eyes 
and a little brown face with freckles up 
over her little turned-up nose. But her 
hair could not possibly have been 
blacker and it just naturally curled so 
tight that I used to say to her, joking, 
of course, 

*‘Your hair curls so tight it sure 
hurts you to shut your eyes !” 

And then she would shut them just 
as tight as she could to show us that 
it didn’t hurt her. When she did that 
she looked so cute and funny that even 
the teacher laughed. 

We started to school at an early age 
in those days and she was not quite 
five when she first came to school, at 
the beginning of the summer term. 


96 


JUST STORIES 


When the teacher asked her what was 
her name she said E-lizaheth in such 
a funny way that we all laughed. We 
always tried out a new teacher in some 
such way the first day. We saw right 
then that that teacher would keep 
order. 

Jake didn't ever come to summer 
school because he had to work. Jake's 
folks didn’t own much of a farm. They 
had only eighty acres and it was over 
among the ‘"breaks" and was mostly 
hazel brush and pin oak. It was some 
gravelly, too. Elizabeth's father owned 
more than a thousand acres and her 
folks lived in a house that had an up- 
stairs and was painted white. Eliza- 
beth's father was the first man in our 
county to have a Durham bull. He 
took the New York Weekly Tribune 
and Harper's Weekly and Elizabeth's 
mother took Godey's Magazine and Ar- 
thur's Magazine and had a melodeon. 

People said that all of Jake's family 
lived in only three rooms and two of 
them only an old log cabin and the 


HER BLACK CURLS 


97 


room behind made just by nailing com- 
mon boards up and down and they had 
never been painted. I can't say this 
of my own knowledge, for I never hap- 
pened to see the place. It wasn’t on 
any real road and then our farm ad- 
joined Elizabeth’s folks’ farm and we 
lived in the northeast corner of the 
school district and Jake’s folks lived 
in the southwest corner of the district. 
Fact is, when they first moved on their 
farm our district claimed for awhile 
that they w^ere in the adjoining district 
for neither district wanted the children 
because they had head lice. But that 
was a lie, for the first day Jake and his 
brother and sister came to school Bob 
Bales got in front of him and sung, 

‘‘I don’t think that you are nice. 

Got a dirty head all full of lice.’* 
Bob had sung that before, but this 
was the first time he had got licked 
for it. Jake didn’t give him just a 
plain licking; he gave him an awful 
licking. That happened before school 
took up and the teacher didn’t say any- 


98 


JUST STORIES 


thing about it. But he looked over the 
heads of Jake and his brother and sis- 
ter carefully and couldn’t find any lice. 
Just the same, to be on the safe side, he 
took the coal oil that the debating so- 
ciety used in the lamps and soaked 
their heads good. It was almost 
Christmas and we had had that teacher 
for nearly three months and we didn’t 
laugh any in school time ; and we didn’t 
laugh any at recess, for Bob Bales was 
nearly twice as big as Jake, and Bob 
was wiping his eyes and nose on the 
back of his hand yet. But we wouldn’t 
play with Jake or his brother or his 
sister and none of them ever came back 
to school — except Jake. 

That winter Jake’s father and sister 
were converted when the Methodists 
had their revival at the Union Church 
in the adjoining district, and that let 
them into the school in that district. 
It was a Methodist district. It was a 
powerful revival that winter and the 
usual crop of backsliders — you could 
depend on them being converted and 


HER BLACK CURLS 


99 


backsliding every year — were re- 
claimed, and even the Carey boys were 
converted and remained faithful until 
plowing began. They had awfully 
stumpy land. Why, when old Sam 
Bettrick was converted that winter 
they heard him shouting up at Sam’s 
brother’s, three quarters of a mile 
away. I’ve stood at Froggy Corner, a 
mile from the church, and heard the 
congregation sing, 

"‘A charge to keep I have,” 
and one night some people farther than 
that from the church heard Mrs. Skin- 
ner singing, 

‘‘Shall I be carried to the skies, 

On flowery beds of ease. 

While others fight to win the prize. 
And sail through bloody seas.” 

She was the best singer they had — 
she could sing the loudest of any of 
them. 

Jake wasn’t converted. He was too 
young to go to the mourners’ bench, 
although the presiding elder thought 
otherwise. He said some of the most 


100 


JUST STORIES 


powerful conversions and brightest 
testimonies he had ever seen had been 
children no older. But Jake wouldn’t 
have gone anyhow. His father was so 
full of zeal and religion and the grace 
of God after he was converted that he 
wanted to lick Jake if he didn’t seek 
salvation, but his mother interfered. 
Anyhow Jake’s father, especially after 
he had been saved, licked Jake so often 
that a licking coming didn’t scare Jake 
at all. 

Jake kept coming right along to our 
school till the first of March. Farm 
work began then. But none of the 
girls would even look at him and when 
they had to stand by him in the spell- 
ing class they stood as far away from 
him as they could. We boys would 
let him play with us some because he 
was the best batter we small boys had 
and no one could beat him at ‘‘prison- 
ers* base”; and when Elizabeth’s 
brother brought to school a hard rub- 
ber store ball Jake was the only one 
that could catch when Linn Grover 
pitched. 


HER BLACK CURLS 


101 


As IVe said, Jake never got to go to 
summer school, and he never got to 
come to winter school until about 
Christmas, when all the corn was 
shucked. Jake’s folks rented consider- 
able land and then Jake always worked 
around, taking up the down row, until 
everybody was done shucking. It was 
just a week before Christmas when he 
came back to our school the next win- 
ter and that was the first winter term 
Elizabeth attended, but he was three 
years older than she was. 

She favored him from the very first 
day. She was awfully kind hearted — 
her father or mother never whipped 
h,er — and she seemed to pity Jake. 
That very first day she said some 
dreadfully wicked things for a little 
girl to say to other girls. The second 
day she went right up to Jake and 
said, 

''How’s your mother?” 

"Much obleeged, she’s right peart,” 
said Jake right out. But we didn’t 
laugh — we were too much astonished 


102 


JUST STORIES 


at Elizabeth. And because Jake didn’t 
have one of the new spellers she lent 
him hers, although her brother didn’t 
want her to, and said so. You see, 
when Jake started in the winter before 
the only book he had was an old copy 
of Webster’s Blue Backed Speller, 
Whereof More Than One Million 
Copies Have Been Sold,” and that’s all 
the book he had until his father and 
sister were converted and then the 
Methodists got him a reader and an 
arithmetic. Nearly everybody in our 
district was Presbyterian. Elizabeth’s 
father was the most prominent man in 
the Presbyterian Church. They said 
her mother had been an Episcopalian 
before she was married, but we had no 
Episcopalians or Catholics in our part 
of the country. It was a moral, law 
abiding community and all the church 
people were real Christians. 

After Jake got the coal oil out of his 
hair the first winter he actually wet it 
and combed it every morning and came 
to school with it slick. But he just 


HER BLACK CURLS 


103 


couldn't get his hands clean. You see 
he had shucked corn so much and his 
hands had been cracked so long that 
the dirt had got away in and he just 
couldn't get it all out. What made it 
worse was that we all filled the cracks 
in our hands with shoemaker's wax 
while we were shucking corn, and Jake 
had so many cracks until corn shuck- 
ing was done that his hands were just 
about nothing but dirt and shoemaker's 
wax. Then Jake's hands were just nat- 
urally dirty. If he had washed them 
perfectly clean and stuck them in his 
pockets they'd have been dirty when 
he took them out. I've seen him go to 
the sink in the corner of the school 
room and wash and scrub and scrub 
and wash his hands until they were 
perfectly clean and then hold them up 
to the stove to dry and as soon as they 
were dry they were dirty! Then it 
must be said that Jake was careless 
about dirt. If he wanted to do some- 
thing he never thought about a thing 
except how to do that something. He 


104 


JUST STORIES 


would just as soon take hold of a dirty 
rail or board as not. Everybody that 
he worked for said that he would do 
more work than any other body of his 
size they had ever seen. He drove a 
team every place when he was only 
eight years old and he run a plow when 
he was ten, and the summer he was 
fourteen, when he was helping old man 
Bales in wheat harvest and no one 
could get extra help the minister yelled 
at old man Bales from the road, 

“How are you getting along with 
only two hands?’' 

“Got three.” 

“Got three? Where did you pick up 
the extra?” 

“Oh, it’s Jake. And dast me if he 
ain’t the best hand I’ve got.” 

That was just about true, too. 

It just looked as if Jake didn’t have 
to study at all to learn. And the peo- 
ple in the adjoining district said that 
was true of his brother and his sister. 
Jake hadn’t been going to school four 
years — and he got to go only about 


HER BLACK CURLS 


105 


two months a year — until he could ac- 
tually spell down anybody in our 
school or in the adjoining district. 
Only he never would spell down Eliza- 
beth. She was about the next best 
speller. Some said Rhody Skinner was 
better and some said she wasn’t. Sev- 
eral times Jake could have gone above 
Elizabeth and he just missed on pur- 
pose. We knew that he did, no matter 
what he said. He went through the 
third arithmetic book when he was 
only fourteen. He was the only 
scholar in the school that really under- 
stood partial payments and he and 
Elizabeth were the only ones that 
could get the correct answer to the 
problem of the price of the horse that 
had so many nails in its shoes. People 
said that his mother helped him at 
home. After that big revival the Meth- 
odist women tried to be neighborly and 
visited Jake’s mother all day and they 
found that she had twenty-six real 
books — not school books — that had be- 
longed to her before she was married. 


106 


JUST STORIES 


Jake’s father never read books, but he 
was an extra good worker. For some 
reason, Jake’s mother never visited 
back at the Methodist women’s houses. 
She went to four or five houses, but she 
stayed only half an hour; she never 
visited back, so no one ever visited her 
again. The way she acted made a good 
deal of talk. She never was popular 
in that neighborhood. 

Well, Jake kept coming to school 
about ten weeks each winter and work- 
ing around among the neighbors when 
he wasn’t working at home. He and 
Elizabeth were the best scholars of 
their ages in the school. Jake must 
sure have studied a lot out of school 
some how. He never could keep his 
hands clean, but the last year he was 
with us he was invited out some to 
oyster suppers and even to parties — 
and Elizabeth always chose him when 
we played Miller and Wade the 
Swamp, although her brother didn’t 
approve ; and Jake got a store suit and 
fine calfskin boots with fancy tops. 


HER BLACK CURLS 


107 


and wore a paper collar, like the rest of 
the boys. He got to be a regular leader. 
The teacher nearly always asked him 
to put wood in the stove and to wash 
off the blackboard. He was always 
one of the two that chose up for town 
ball or prisoner’s base. That last year 
he was with us he was the best ball 
player for miles around. He got for 
five dollars a single barrelled shot gun 
— an old Springfield rifle bored out — 
and he killed more geese and ducks and 
prairie chickens than anyone else, and 
there were some mighty good double- 
barrelled guns in the neighborhood. If 
he had stayed two years longer he 
would have been real popular. I be- 
lieve that as it was the Presbyterians 
would have allowed him to join their 
church had he cared to do so, although, 
of course, he would not have added 
anything to it socially or financially, 
as the minister would have said. But 
Jake was not religious, although he 
went to Sunday School and never 
touched liquor and didn’t swear much. 


108 


JUST STORIES 


Jake’s family were all good workers 
and they rented considerable land and 
had good crops and were lucky about 
not having hog cholera, and so they 
had money to lend, and then they sold 
their little farm and bought a big farm 
in Iowa. It was really surprising how 
they got along on that little farm. ’ 

We all actually hated to have Jake 
go when the time came. I was Jake’s 
closest friend and the night before he 
went away he came to our house and 
we filled up the fireplace with hick- 
ory, and cracked hazel nuts and shell- 
barks on the hearth. We were talking 
about Jake’s new home and about his 
going away, of course, and I was just 
completely flabbergasted when he 
blurted out, 

‘'If it weren’t for just one thing, I’d 
hope to God I’d never see this old 
neighborhood again.” 

I was so surprised I was struck 
dumb. I couldn’t say anything and 
anyhow if I had asked him I don’t be- 
lieve Jake would have told me what 


HER BLACK CURLS 


109 


that one thing was or why he spoke 
that way. I couldn’t understand it 
then, but I think now that Jake had 
not forgotten how he and his family 
had been treated when they first 
came. I guess that was the reason, 
too, why he would never talk about 
himself or his family. He was so odd 
in that way that none of us was very 
much surprised when not one of us, 
so far as we could learn, ever got a 
word from him direct after he went to 
Iowa. As I have said, I was his clos- 
est friend, yet he never even wrote to 
me — not once. That night before he 
went away I said to him : 

“You must be sure to write to me 
real often, Jake.” 

“I’m no hand to write letters. 
Never had any one to write to. Never 
wrote a real letter in my life.” 

Still I was sure he would write to 
me. But he didn’t. I wrote him three 
times, but he never answered. We 
never heard from any of his family 
either. Not even the Methodists 


110 


JUST STORIES 


heard from them. When the Metho- 
dists were raising money to paint the 
church they wrote and asked Jake’s 
father to send twenty dollars. They 
thought that if they asked for twenty 
they might get ten. But they didn’t 
get any reply at all. I tell you they 
were mad! And Jake’s father had 
been converted three times — he back- 
slid twice. It was plain that he did 
not put a proper value on the means 
of salvation. 

Indirectly we heard that Jake had 
gone through the college at Grinnell, 
and then that he was a lawyer and 
was getting rich, and then one week 
the Leader and Journal had an item 
that he was married! 

That settled his ever marrying 
Elizabeth. Of course we were much 
disappointed in Jake, the way he had 
acted. Some of us had really expected 
that he would marry Elizabeth some 
day, like in the story books. I couldn’t 
understand him at all. From the very 
first time they had seen each other 


HER BLACK CURLS 


111 


they had been friendly. Jake was 
always doing something for Elizabeth 
and she was always standing up for 
him when anyone made fun of him. 
We used to make a lot of fun about 
his name and she used actually to say 
that she liked his name. Jake was 
always making her laugh. Seemed 
like she thought everything Jake did 
was funny or smart. It was odd he 
never talked much except to Eliza- 
beth. Always he thought her black 
curls were the prettiest hair he had 
ever seen. Always kept saying so. 
Seemed as if she ever got at all near 
him he just had to stroke her curls. 
And she liked to have him stroke her 
curls, until she got too big. He was 
always talking about her black curls. 
He wasn’t a bit ashamed of it. Once 
he and Elizabeth passed some notes 
at school and he denied it, red as a 
winesap, till she owned up, but he 
never denied anything he said about 
her curls. I couldn’t understand why 
he never wrote or came back on a 


112 


JUST STORIES 


visit, notwithstanding what he had 
said that night, and why he had mar- 
ried that other girl without even try- 
ing to get Elizabeth. 

Her curls just kept the same always 
— as black as black could be, and just 
couldn’t comb her hair out straight. 
But of course when she got about six- 
teen — they let her have curls that long 
because she was so little she looked 
younger — she was too old to have 
curls and she had to comb her hair 
as smooth and slick as she could and 
do it up. All the boys thought it 
spoiled her looks, but our ministers 
had always proved that it was con- 
trary to the Bible for a woman to 
adorn herself with curls and such vain 
glories of the world. Elizabeth wasn’t 
very pretty, but she was considerably 
pretty, and she was cute, the kind 
boys like — little for her age, with a 
turned up nose, and freckles, and 
always dancing around and jumping 
up and down, and considerably of a 
tomboy, and never dignified, and she 


HER BLACK CURLS 


113 


did like fun, and sick people mended 
when they heard her laugh. Only no 
one could ever make her laugh like 
Jake could. 

There’s no doubt that she missed 
Jake, though naturally she wouldn’t 
let on. But I could tell — she never 
laughed like she did when he was 
around. A good many tried to keep 
company with her, but none of them 
seemed to prosper very much — she 
didn’t exactly give them the mitten, 
and she was always kind and jolly, but 
some way they just knew that it was 
no use. She liked to go to parties and 
to have a good time with the other 
young people, but she wouldn’t take 
up with any particular one. And Mrs. 
Skinner said she considered that it 
was plain enough that Elizabeth 
didn’t care to get married and she told 
of several girls that acted that way 
till they were old maids of twenty or 
twenty-one and then no one worth 
while wanted them. 

Then about the time Elizabeth was 


114 


JUST STORIES 


eighteen the Presbyterian minister 
died. We all felt badly enough. We 
had all become very much attached to 
him for he had been minister of our 
church for six years. That was longer 
than a minister had ever lasted before 
and it’s longer than one has lasted 
since. Everybody was excited over 
getting a new minister. All the 
women and girls wanted a young, un- 
married minister — thought he could 
best meet the spiritual needs of the 
congregation and be most helpful to 
the young people, especially the young 
men. Of course that was the kind of 
a minister we got. He was all right, 
too. He was of good size, and rode a 
skittish filly, and had been a member 
of a military company, and he wore a 
mustache. Elizabeth’s family were the 
first to have him to dinner, and we all 
settled it right at the start — except 
some of the girls — that he would 
marry Elizabeth. It was just four 
weeks from the time he preached his 
first sermon when they had the church 


HER BLACK CURLS 


115 


picnic and he treated Elizabeth to ice 
cream and a ride in the merry-go- 
round. The only other girl he showed 
any real attention to at the picnic was 
Kate Bales and he only bought her 
lemonade. The lemonade cost only 
five cents and ice cream ten cents and 
the merry-go-round five cents. It was 
plain to see what girl he would set up 
with. Everybody — except some of the 
older girls — ^knew that he and Eliza- 
beth would marry. Any girl that 
wasn’t crazy would jump at the 
chance to marry a Presbyterian min- 
ister. And Elizabeth was the best girl 
to get in the neighborhood. 

Well, a year went by and then two 
years went by and everybody won- 
dered what was wrong with Elizabeth 
and the minister. Elizabeth went with 
other young fellows, but the minister 
certainly had the inside track. Then 
Elizabeth was getting old to marry 
and would soon be an old maid — some 
said she was only nineteen, but Mrs. 
Skinner said she was past twenty if 


116 


JUST STORIES 


she was a day, and Mrs. Skinner was 
right. Further, the minister was get- 
ting $150 more a year than he got the 
first year. Anyhow, Elizabeth’s father 
was rich and would give her a big 
setting out. So I said to her one day, 
half joking and half in earnest — ^you 
see our farms had always joined and 
I never had a sister and mother had 
her at our house a lot — I said : 

^'When are you going to get mar- 
ried, Elizabeth?” 

“Real soon,” she said. 

“Honest Injun?” 

“Honest Injun, but you mustn’t 
tell.” 

“All right. Cross my heart, I won’t. 
Is it some one I know?” 

“You know him well.” 

“Of course you love him fit to die.” 

“He’s the only man I’ve ever loved 
well enough to marry. Now are you 
satisfied?” 

“Known him about two years, 
haven’t you?” 

“Known him long enough to know 


HER BLACK CURLS 117 

that he’s the best man that ever 
lived” 

You should have seen how she 
tossed her head when she said that! 
She tossed it so hard she shook 
down some of her hair, and quick as 
scat it curled up tight. 

I knew, of course, that the Presby- 
terian minister would be scandalized 
if a grown woman had curls, so I 
said : 

“Better not toss your head like that 
when the lucky man is around. He 
won’t like those curls.” 

“He just loves them,” she said. 

I laughed at the joke. 

“Wish you much joy,” I said. 
“These old shoes I have on will soon 
be fit to throw at the bride.” 

Sure enough, inside of a week, 
Elizabeth’s friends got real printed 
invitations to her wedding, and the 
man’s name was J. Howard Schroe- 
der. That wasn’t the minister’s name 
at all. Then it came out that all the 
time the minister had been engaged 


118 


JUST STORIES 


to a girl in his own home. It wasn’t 
long after that till he was married. 
For some reason his sermons weren’t 
liked so well after that. They didn’t 
contain just the right spiritual nour- 
ishment, especially for the girls and 
women. Miss Nevada Bales, who was 
always assistant superintendent of 
the Sunday school and was twenty- 
six — Mrs. Skinner remembered dis- 
tinctly the day she was born — quoted 
what Paul said about a minister mar- 
rying. The minister took another 
charge — he was sorry indeed to leave 
us, but he had counselled with God 
in prayer, and felt that he could win 
more souls in the new field of labor. 
The salary was fifty dollars a year 
more, too. 

None of us had ever heard of J. 
Howard Schroeder. Who was he? 
Where did he live? Did he have a 
big farm? How did he ever meet 
Elizabeth? Where did he ever spark 
her? The Leader and Journal said 
they had information that he was a 


HER BLACK CURLS 


119 


commercial traveler and lived in 
Englewood, a fashionable suburb of 
Chicago, and that they had met at a 
Chautauqua, but the Leader and Jour- 
nal, like all newspapers, was so often 
wrong and guessed at so much of its 
news, that we weren't sure about this, 
although Miss Bales knew well a Mr. 
Schroeder that was a travelling man, 
although he was just then not travel- 
ling until he made a suitable connec- 
tion with some strictly first class, hon- 
orable firm that treated its men right, 
and Mrs. Skinner knew that Engle- 
wood was a fashionable suburb of 
Chicago, where nearly all its rich men 
lived — her niece's husband's sister 
lived there. 

At first we thought the printer must 
have made a mistake in the man’s 
name, but Elizabeth said it was cor- 
rect and she just laughed and laughed 
and wouldn't tell anybody anything. 
Nor would her folks. 

We all nearly went crazy. I be- 
lieve that if the wedding had not come 


120 


JUST STORIES 


off for another week some would have 
gone crazy. Mrs. Skinner sure would. 
We called her ‘‘the daily paper.^’ She 
couldn’t find out a thing, for sure. 

We watched both the morning train 
and the night train for a week before 
the wedding, but J. Howard Schroe- 
der must have got off at the station up 
the road and had some one from Eliza- 
beth’s meet him and drive him over 
at night, for no one saw him till the 
wedding party reached the church. No 
one knew him. He was a stunner all 
right. He was dressed fit to kill. Had 
gloves and a stove pipe hat. 

But what beat that, when Elizabeth 
walked up the aisle her hair hung 
down her back in curls. Everybody 
was just too astonished and scandal- 
ized to breathe. 

And that wasn’t half. While the 
minister was praying, bless me if that 
fellow didn’t stroke Elizabeth’s curls 
just like Jake used to. 

I was the first to catch on—I know 
I beat Mrs. Skinner — ^but I will con- 


HER BLACK CURLS 


121 


fess that the bride and groom were 
half way down the aisle before I knew 
that it was Jake. 

J. Howard Schroeder didn’t sound 
at all like Jake Shrader — that’s the 
way they used to pronounce the name. 

We found out later that Jake and 
Elizabeth had been corresponding 
all the time and that that wasn’t the 
first time he had got off at the sta- 
tion up the road. 

Of course our Jake had never been 
married at all — the Leader and Jour- 
nal was wrong as usual. I was al- 
ways glad that it hardly ever men- 
tioned me. 

Elizabeth and Jake visit her folks 
twice every year, and I won’t ask you 
to believe it, but she wears her hair 
in curls down her back all the time. 
Jake simply won’t have it any other 
way. And you ought to see him stroke 
those black curls — ^just like he used 
to, only more and tenderer, 


THE SPELLING BEE AT FROG- 
GY CORNERS. 


The sky was sprinkled thick with 
stars — so much thicker than the stars 
are nowadays, and they were so much 
brighter. How they twinkled! The 
snow lay almost a foot deep in the 
woods. There was a crust on it that 
broke with a crackling sound and Ike^s 
boots crunched down into it as he 
hurried along. There was frost and 
crispness in the air. There was no 
wind except at times a mysterious 
little gale that passed quickly, sting- 
ing the face and bringing tears to the 
eyes. Ike stopped a moment where 
the black lines marked the deep ruts 
in the bank of the creek, to be sure 
that the ice had held up a loaded 
wagon. He could see rabbits hopping 
around in the dim light — the moon 
was not yet above the horizon — scur- 


THE SPELLING BEE 


123 


rying, as he approached, into the 
hedge rows and the corn fields. The 
leafless branches of the trees were in- 
crusted thick with snow and ice, for 
the snowstorm had ended with a fall of 
sleet. As the branches were moved 
by the occasional wind there was the 
sound of ice cracking and of the 
fall of pieces of sleet encrusted snow. 
The squirrels were all fast asleep in 
their beds in the trunks of hollow 
trees. As Ike passed the abandoned 
graveyard at the edge of the woods, 
some animal stirred cautiously among 
its brown weeds and brambles. Una- 
fraid, for he knew that there were no 
ghosts and he had always had to fight 
his way, he paused to look at the only 
‘‘monument’" in the graveyard, now 
doubly prominent because nearly all 
the “headstones” were broken or fallen 
down. As he rested for a short mo- 
ment on the rail fence that separated 
the woods from the highway, he heard 
the honk, honk of wild geese in their 
flight overhead. He could not be mis- 


124 


JUST STORIES 


taken in the sound and he wondered, 
as he had in previous winters, why 
there were some in flight so much 
later than the others. Half a mile 
farther on he passed near some hay- 
stacks and the night was so still that 
he could hear the gossip of the little 
birds that had forced their way into 
the shelter of the hay. He could see, 
just ahead, cattle lying close against 
the big straw rick around which they 
had eaten and raced until it made an 
overhanging shelter. He could hear 
the hogs grunting in the steaming, 
rotten straw, and occasionally there 
was a short, sharp, angry squeal. Sud- 
denly a dog ran past him, silent, swift, 
sneaking. He did not know the dog, 
but he did know that there was wool 
in its teeth. 

Who's got a black and white dog? 
Don't believe it belongs to anyone on 
our prairie," he thought. “Bet it be- 
longs somewheres along Texas creek.” 

It was stinging cold and in the open 
the occasional wind had more force; 


THE SPELLING BEE 


125 


he swung his arms viciously as he 
walked, pounding his body with his 
numbed hands. He came to a stump 
and kicked it with short, quick thrusts 
a dozen times or more, to warm his 
feet. As he neared another road he 
could hear the brisk trot of horses, 
the jingle of sleigh bells, the shrill 
sound of steel runners on the crisp 
snow, and merry calls and laughter. 
A jolly crowd it was, that was plain. 
It, too, must be going to the spelling 
bee at Froggy Corners school house. 
Yes, that grey team was Bert Good- 
ing’s, and that was his sleigh — the 
moon was up now, and the blue body 
and red running gears were plainly 
visible. And that was Cora Crawford 
with Bert in the sleigh. Of course. 

Something tightened around the 
heart of the walker. He had no sleigh. 
He had not even a horse. He was 
alone. He was only a farm hand, and 
more — or less — than that. Most of 
the farm hands had a horse, and a 
saddle and bridle of fancy colors, and 


126 


JUST STORIES 


also a sleigh. Some of them, for that 
matter, were the sons of well-to-do- 
men. Nearly all were welcome at any 
fireside in the neighborhood. He was 
different, for he had come from a 
foundling^s home and the farmer that 
had ‘‘raised” him gave him only shel- 
ter and food and clothes until he was 
seventeen. This was the first year he 
had been permitted to hire out for 
wages. He had been paid eighteen 
dollars a month, board and room and 
washing included, for six months and 
he had saved ninety dollars of this 
and had it out at interest. He could 
fairly hope to be a farm owner some 
day. Now for three months he had 
been working by the day — putting 
corn in the shock, seeding wheat and 
husking corn. Unfortunately during 
the winter the best he could do would 
be to help in the feeding and milking 
and cut stove wood for his board, room 
and washing. He could not buy a 
horse just yet, but hope was radiant — 
his financial condition and prospects 


THE SPELLING BEE 


127 


were highly satisfactory. If only that 
were all! 

The sleighs were now almost oppo- 
site. 

‘‘Hello, there 1^’ he called. 

“Hello yourself.’’ 

“Who are you?” 

“None of your biz. Who are you?” 

“Same to you.” 

By this time he had recognized a 
dozen voices and those in the sleigh 
had recognized his. 

“Where are you going?” he asked. 

“Farther along the road.” 

All the girls laughed. Such wit ! 

“You’re so sharp you must have 
been roosting on the grind stone.” 

“Don’t have to — just sharp natur- 
ally.” 

How the girls did laugh! 

“Must have some girls along.” 

“Wouldn’t go any place if couldn’t 
get a girl to take along.” 

At that the girls laughed so loud 
and long — and the bitterness of it was 
that the girls knew that he could not 


128 


JUST STORIES 


ask a girl to ride and none would walk 
with him — that the sleighs were al- 
most out of hearing before he could 
call — 

“Some people know more about 
quantity than quality/' 

He had heard that said once and it 
had silenced the other fellow and had 
won a laugh. 

“And some don't know about 
either." 

He could hear the girls laughing 
again. He was in an ill humor. He 
had the worst of it. Why was it al- 
ways so? He never could “get back." 
He never could think of something 
mean to say until it was too late. Some 
people always had funny or mean 
things to say, just as some people were 
rich. It was unfair. He knew that 
the people of the neighborhood looked 
down on him. He couldn't help it. It 
could not be his fault that no one knew 
who was his father or his mother. 
None had any right to say they hadn't 
been married — none knew. His father 


THE SPELLING BEE 


129 


might have been at one time the rich- 
est man in New York. Some day he 
would kill those that said his father 
had been a Jew — he would stand any- 
thing but that. But he would show 
them again tonight who was the best 
speller of all. If old Harm Meyer had 
never paid him wages or given him 
much money, he had at least sent him 
to school. He’d give old Harm credit 
for that. Odd that he never could do 
well in some studies when spelling and 
learning pieces to speak were so easy 
for him. All at once he felt so utterly 
cast down and sick at heart, but above 
all, so lonesome and alone. He could 
hear some one coming — it was a 
*‘crowd” in a big sled drawn by four 
horses. He waited for it to come up. 

‘'Hello, there!” called the driver. 

It was Joe Brady. 

“Hello, Joe. Going to the spelling 
bee?” 

“Yes. Crawl in. Always room for 
one more. And you know girls like 
to be crowded by young fellows.” 


130 


JUST STORIES 


But none of the young people, seat- 
ed closely together along both sides of 
the big sled, moved. No one could be 
quicker than Ike to perceive this — for 
that abundant training had been thrust 
upon him. 

‘‘Thank you, but walking is good. 
Looks like you had a full load.'*’ 

“Well, we have even couples,** ex- 
plained Joe. 

“All right, ril beat you there, any- 
how.** 

“Bet you don*t.** 

“Bet I do. And 1*11 spell down every 
one in your crowd.*’ 

Joe started his horses. No one else 
in the sled had spoken. Silence is 
more cruel than words. 

Ike sprang over the low fence and 
walked viciously across the field of 
dismantled corn stalks, striking angri- 
ly at them as he passed along. Soon 
he saw the lights of the Froggy Cor- 
ners school house. It was the largest 
school house in the township. It had 
five windows in each side while the 


THE SPELLING BEE 


131 


others had only three. Girls were 
chattering at the sides of some sleds 
while young men were throwing 
blankets over the steaming horses. No 
one spoke to him. Well, he would 
show them! He had been the best 
speller in the township for two years 
past. And he had just studied every 
page of that new speller. 

The school house was already 
crowded when he entered. His heart 
beat fast and hard and he had a mis- 
erable, choking sensation, for he was 
the least esteemed of all in the neigh- 
borhood, except the O’Brien’s, who 
had aid from the county every winter. 

But, as he sought some corner into 
which he could hurry, ‘^Old Man 
Hogue,” the richest farmer of them all, 
who was standing near the door, shook 
his hand back and forth in a horizontal 
plane, with a ‘‘Howdy, boy? How’s 
Ike?” It would not be long until Feb- 
ruary, when hands were hired, and 
Hogue believed that he could get more 
work out of this strapping fellow than 


132 


JUST STORIES 


any one else. Besides, Ike would not 
have a horse to be pastured, and he 
would not run away from the feeding 
and milking Sunday evenings — he 
would not have any girl to court. 

The hand shake of Hogue got others 
for Ike. Hogue was a leader, not only 
because of his many acres and steers, 
but because of his personality. He 
was “six feet, two,” spare, broad shoul- 
dered, smooth shaven, with a long, 
sharp nose, protruding cheek bones, 
and abundant hair always uncombed. 
His hands were enormously large and 
the skin on them was full of peculiar 
brown splotches. His big feet were 
in boots needlessly large, with leath- 
ern “legs” reaching close to his knees, 
and always one trouser leg was tucked 
inside while the other was pulled down 
over the high boot leg. Summer and 
winter alike he wore a home-made 
shirt of gayly barred flannel. It was 
reported, though not really believed 
by any one, that once, on some occa- 
sion of tremendous importance, he had 


THE SPELLING BEE 


133 


accepted a paper collar from one of 
his hands and had actually worn it. He 
had denied this, when he heard it, with 
such warmth and vigor of language 
that it was never mentioned after- 
wards. He grew tobacco and smoked 
and chewed it without adulteration or 
treatment of any kind — enough to give 
any man distinction, even in that 
neighborhood. As he dropped Ike^s 
hand he shot a stream of dark amber 
between his long, yellow teeth, at the 
stove, full ten feet away. It went ac- 
curately as he had designed — an inch 
above the head of one man, just past 
the ear of another, over the heads of 
two girls and between two women 
shaking hands, struck square against 
the red hot stove, and was spattered 
off among the chips of wood and bark 
and the worm dust on the floor. 

'‘Old Man Hogue,” as every one 
called him, was sure to be the center 
of a compact group in any gathering 
of men, but he was not the most pop- 
ular man at the spelling bee. That 


134 


JUST STORIES 


honor unquestionably went to Bub 
Monahan. In addition to the very great 
distinction of being an old bachelor, 
Bub was reputed to be very wicked 
when he went to the city of twenty 
thousand population and all of thirty 
miles distant, and he certainly always 
had the calfskin Sunday boots with 
the highest heels and the most wrin- 
kles in the legs and the most ornate 
tops — green leather with white and 
red crescents and stars. He combed 
his hair in the prevailing style of the 
neighborhood — brought down across 
the forehead and very smooth and 
‘"slick” — and he also parted it to the 
right and the left behind. He was the 
wit of the township and more, and was 
very popular with every one — old men, 
old women, young men, young women, 
and especially children and dogs. He 
pushed his way through the crowd to 
Hogue. 

“Hogue, I always feel sorry for you 
when I see you in a crowd.” 

“Why, Bub?” 


THE SPELLING BEE 


135 


*Tm always afraid a little feller like 
you will get run over.*' 

That same conversation had occur- 
red between Hogue and Bub at least 
two hundred times, yet every one 
laughed heartily, and no one more so 
than Bub and Hogue. 

“What’d they feed you on when you 
were a baby, Hogue?’* asked Bub. 

‘‘They didn’t feed me. I just eat.” 

“Didn’t do anything but eat, I 
guess.” 

“You’re wrong, I growed.” 

Every one laughed so hard for all 
of two minutes that neither Hogue 
nor Bub tried to say a word. Further, 
they were laughing as hard as any 
one. 

“Say, Bub,” said Hogue, “I know 
why you didn’t grow as big as I did.” 

“So do I,” said Bub. “I worked.” 

Clearly the joke was on Hogue and 
he slapped Bub on the back and made 
successfully an exceedingly difficult shot 
at the stove. 

Ike had been one of the group 


136 


JUST STORIES 


around Hogue and Bub. Why not? 
Old Man Hogue had spoken to him in 
the friendliest sort of way. All the 
bitterness had gone from his heart. In 
a moment his self esteem had grown 
enormously. Old Man Hogue had 
spoken to him and actually had shaken 
hands with him. He was no longer 
the diffident, shame-faced orphan, look- 
ing for a corner in which to be half 
hidden. 

Others had noticed the greeting by 
Old Man Hogue and when Ike left the 
group and looked around for a seat, 
Oscar Rafferty, who lived on one of 
Hogue’s farms and stood quite high in 
the community — he had the best span 
of mules in the township and every 
one of his five girls was pretty — moved 
over hastily to give Ike a corner of the 
desk on which he was sitting. Ike was 
glad that all the seats were taken and 
that he must sit on a desk, as that gave 
him better opportunity to see and es- 
pecially as it increased the probabili- 
ties of his being seen. Already his fancy 


THE SPELLING BEE 


137 


was busy with the long conversation 
he was sure that he and Old Man 
Hogue would have soon. 

Ike and Oscar chatted about the hog 
cholera which Oscar believed could be 
cured by the internal administration 
of turpentine and soft soap, while Ike 
pinned his faith to copperas and assa- 
foetida. Oscar knew that assafoetida 
and sulphur and molasses were the 
best cure for the itch, but doubted that 
assafoetida and copperas would reach 
the real hog cholera. Ike told him how 
Mrs. Henry had cured her chickens of 
cholera by putting copperas and assa- 
foetida in their feed and drinking wa- 
ter. Oscar did not doubt that at all, 
but hog cholera and chicken cholera 
w’ere different. Ike couldn’t see any 
real difference, for chicken cholera 
killed chickens as dead as hog cholera 
killed hogs. Evidently Oscar thought 
himself incapable of answering this 
argument, for he changed the subject 
adroitly. 

"'Who knit that comforter for you. 


138 


JUST STORIES 


Ike?” he asked. 

‘‘Well, it wasn’t a man.” 

“Suppose you want me to believe 
that it was some girl.” 

“Who else do you suppose?” 

Again Oscar was puzzled for a reply, 
and was silent. This was not unwel- 
come to Ike — it gave him a better op- 
portunity to think and to observe. He 
was very proud of that big comforter 
— ten feet long, more than a foot wide, 
and knit of yarn of a dozen different 
colors. He was sure that every one 
would think that some girl had knit it 
for him, for it was the custom for a 
girl to knit a comforter for her best 
beau — or the boy she wished to be her 
best beau. As a matter of fact, it had 
been knit by Mrs. Henry — Ike had 
been employed by Old Hi Henry that 
year — and he had paid her one dollar 
and fifteen cents for it — ninety-five 
cents for the yarn and twenty cents for 
the labor. Mrs. Henry had, on the 
more than a hundred occasions she 
had thought of it since, obtained a very 


THE SPELLING BEE 


139 


great deal of satisfaction from her hav- 
ing charged Ike ten cents too much 
for the yarn. But Ike was ignorant 
of that, fortunately for his peace of 
mind, and he was certain that in all 
of that big crowd there was none other 
that had a comforter quite as long or 
with quite as many or as bright col- 
ors. Ike was actually proud of his 
“get up.” He knew that his hair was 
as “slick,” and combed as far down 
over his forehead, as anyone’s. Only 
one or two had a tie as gorgeously 
plaided as his. He felt sure that his 
paper collar was as high as any in the 
room. The one point of dissatisfac- 
tion was his boots — they were of calf 
skin, it was true, but the heels might 
be higher, and the tops were of only 
one color, and a pale green at that. 
But to offset that was his ring, ham- 
mered out of a copper two cent piece ; 
and he crossed his legs and clasped his 
hands around his knees, to display this 
ring, and felt that, after all, life was 
well worth living. 


140 


JUST STORIES 


Because of the greeting given him 
by Old Man Hogue, Ike had several 
to talk with, and the climax was surely 
reached when Bert Gooding^ crowd- 
ing through the jam around the stove, 
stopped for a moment’s friendly chat. 

“Guess you’ll spell every one down 
tonight, Ike.” 

Ike feigned modesty. 

“Might spell everybody down if I 
could spell as well as you or Cora 
Crawford.” 

It was a shrewd rejoinder. Bert 
laughed, heartily pleased at the com- 
pliment to his spelling, and even more 
that he should thus be associated with 
Cora Crawford. No one disputed that 
she was the prettiest girl for many 
miles around. 

“You’re a cute one, all right,” said 
Bert as he turned away. 

Ike was now well satisfied with him- 
self. He knew that what he had said 
to Bert must have been cute, and who 
could blame a poor foundling for be- 
ing puffed up because of such a com- 
pliment, and from Bert! 


THE SPELLING BEE 


141 


The teacher of the Froggy Corners 
school stepped to his desk in the cor- 
ner of the room and swung vigorous- 
ly back and forth the handbell with 
which he called his school to order. 
There was no sound from the bell, but 
hearty laughter from the few near him, 
who saw at once that the clapper had 
been removed. In three seconds this 
important and thrilling event was 
known by every one in the room. The 
hilarity was vociferous! It was such 
a stupendous joke. Everyone laughed 
but a few old men and the teacher. 

“Got to be mighty careful or the 
boys will get ahead of you yet!^^ said 
one old farmer to the teacher. 

“I’ll do my part if the parents 
will do theirs,” replied the teacher, 
thoroughly angry. He knew how much 
his standing would be lowered by the 
theft of the clapper and that it would 
now be all the more difficult for him 
to “keep order.” Besides, the old far- 
mer had two notoriously bad boys and 
only 120 acres of land. 


142 


JUST STORIES 


''Better carry that clapper in your 
pocket after this/' some one called to 
the teacher, and the uproar became yet 
louder. 

Old Man Hogue picked up a stick 
of stove wood and brought it down 
with a loud whack on the teacher’s 
desk. Almost at once the room be- 
came almost quiet. The remaining 
fringe of noise disappeared as Old Man 
Hogue walked to a seat without a 
word — his silence was far more effec- 
tive than words would have been. 

"I can promise this community,” 
said the Froggy Corners teacher, "that 
if the hoodlums that think they played 
a smart trick by stealing the clapper 
of my bell are ever known, I will ad- 
minister to them proper punishment 
and they won’t feel as funny as they 
do tonight.” 

The room became very silent. The 
people began to realize the enormity of 
their offense. They had laughed at 
the discomfiture of the teacher. The 
parents felt that they had made a 


THE SPELLING BEE 


143 


grievous contribution to insubordina- 
tion, rebellion, disobedience — a deadly 
sin and demoralization in the school 
and the home. In that neighborhood — 
as in most — at that time a teacher was 
regarded as a superior being separate 
and apart from the people. He was 
only a little lower than the preacher. 
This was essential to his “keeping or- 
der,” which was far more important 
than his teaching anything or his pu- 
pils learning anything. The Froggy 
Corners teacher was regarded with 
real awe, for he had a queer book la- 
beled Algebra, He did not claim that 
he could teach what was in that book 
and of course no one in the school 
wished to study algebra. No one could 
say positively that the teacher had 
ever said in so many words that he 
had ever studied algebra, but in some 
way it had come to be understood that 
he had once upon a time numbered it 
among his studies. Was not his pos- 
session of the book proof of this? His 
possession of this book gave him even 
more prestige than the possession of 


144 


JUST STORIES 


a deck of ''playing cards” gave Bub 
Monahan. And it 'svas reported that 
Bub and three others had actually 
played with these cards, screened from 
view by Old Man Hogue’s hay stacks. 

The Froggy Corners teacher was, 
furthermore, a real dandy. He wore 
a white shirt and a paper collar every 
day. His cuffs, with real gold rims 
around the buttons, were always con- 
spicuous on his desk during school 
hours. It was even reported that he 
wore underclothing in summer and did 
not sleep in the shirt he wore during 
the day. This last had really no cred- 
ence, however. There is a limit to 
what one can believe. It had been 
proved, however, that the black broad- 
cloth suit he wore on state occasions 
had cost him $24, and every one knew 
that men’s suits had increased in cost 
during the four years since this suit 
had been bought. But what put the 
very highest touch of dandy on the 
teacher was his going to a real barber 
to have his hair cut, and his using — or 


THE SPELLING BEE 


145 


rather, carrying — a white handkerchief 
every day. This last was the ultimate. 
There could not possibly be anything 
beyond a white handkerchief for every- 
day. 

The teacher put himself back in his 
proper position by requesting the 
young men who were sitting on the 
window sills and on the stove wood 
piled in a corner of the room, to get 
other seats, stating that the exercises 
of the evening could not proceed until 
the young men aforesaid had done 
this. This also relieved the tension 
due to Old Man Hogue^s unique call 
to order. 'While the young men were 
locating themselves elsewhere, there 
was, on the part of others, much shuf- 
fling of feet, and pushing and giggling, 
and an occasional little scream, and ' 
girlish admonitions to Bob or Joe or 
Bill to behave himself — admonitions 
that were really invitations. 

With adequate show of the great 
importance and responsibility he felt, 
the Froggy Corners teacher an- 


146 


JUST STORIES 


nounced that the leader of the one side 
would be Miss Mary Hogue, represent- 
ing the Froggy Corners school, and 
the leader of the other side would be 
selected by those present from other 
schools. At once Bert nominated 
Miss Cora Crawford. She was chosen 
by acclamation. 

These selections made it certain 
that the contest would deeply stir the 
contestants, that its progress would 
be of the most absorbing, even pain- 
ful, interest, and that the result would 
be considered of tremendous import- 
ance. Cora Crawford was easily the 
prettiest and most popular of all the 
girls there. Mary Hog^e certainly 
was not pretty. She was not especial- 
ly intelligent or jolly or sweet dispo- 
sitioned. But her father was the larg- 
est land owner in the county, he fed 
more steers and had more hands and 
mules than any one else, and he was 
the well liked czar of the Froggy Cor- 
ners district. Between the two girls 
there was no small personal feeling 


THE SPELLING BEE 


147 


and rivalry. Land and beauty drew 
beaux about equally well. 

As a matter of customary courtesy 
to the visitors, Cora was given first 
choice. She was indeed sorely per- 
plexed. Her position was truly pain- 
ful. Everyone knew that Ike was the 
best speller present. But then every 
one present knew Ike. And Bert had 
been for years her best friend, her 
champion, and now he was her lover 
and she truly loved him. But her side 
must win. It would be either a great 
victory or disgrace. Was ever duty 
put to a severer test? ‘‘Please choose 
promptly,’’ said the teacher. 

“I’ll take Ike,” said Cora. If she had 
known the words for her condition she 
would have said that she was almost 
fainting. But no one ever fainted, or 
knew what it was, or spoke of it. 

Her choice was the best evidence of 
the intense feeling of the crowd. There 
was scarcely a sound. 

“I’ll take Bert,” said Mary promptly. 
Poor Cora’s condition was beyond ex- 
pression. 


148 


JUST STORIES 


How different was the state of Ike! 
He had ascended into the seventh 
heaven. To be chosen first of all, and 
by Cora Crawford! To stand by her 
all the evening! No other honor or 
joy could ever be like this! 

The crowd forgave him his strut 
and air as he took his place. His face 
was very red. He threw back his 
shoulders and looked very hard, 
straight ahead, at the stove-pipe. All 
mere mortals were beneath his gaze. 

The choosing progressed rapidly. 
There were many expressions of 
feigned surprise, mingled with protes- 
tations that the protestant had been 
chosen sooner than his or her spelling 
ability warranted. There was much 
amusement and the Froggy Corners 
teacher actually smiled when the small 
children were being chosen. But the 
real fun began when the fathers and 
mothers were reached. It was not to 
their discredit that they came last. 
Very few of them had ever had an op- 
portunity to attend a real school of 


THE SPELLING BEE 


149 


any kind. When they were boys and 
girls an education was not a gift thrust 
on the child by the state, and where 
they had been born and reared it was 
a real accomplishment to read and 
write. Those wrinkled, worn, tired 
faces of women that knew little of 
books were the faces of true and noble 
mothers, such as have the reverent af- 
fection of masterful men. They took 
their places, with their stooped, gnarled 
husbands, below their little children, 
without shame. When Old Man 
Hogue went to stand up beside little 
seven year old Susie Dunn, the crowd 
‘‘went wild”, and Old Man Hogue was 
so excited that his liquid shot almost 
missed the stove. 

When all except the visiting teacher 
had been chosen, the Froggy Corners 
teacher solemnly announced the rules, 
using or misusing as many long, un- 
usual words as he could think of. 
There were nine of these rules and at 
least seven of them could have no 


150 


JUST STORIES 


possible application and all of them 
were sure to be ignored. 

The rules announced, the Froggy 
Corners teacher said as he always said 
at this juncture, “We will begin with 
words of only two syllables, in order 
to give the younger children a chance 
— and some of the old people, too,” 
and at that familiar joke on the fath- 
ers and mothers the crowd roared. 

The teacher held his forefinger in 
a certain place in Webster’s Blue 
Backed Speller, but he knew the words 
by heart — 

Lady — Pony — Baker — Only — . 

The battle was on. The room was 
intensely still. The teacher bent low 
towards the smallest children there, 
five year olds, and pronounced to the 
one Dog, and to the other Cat, and again 
the crowd was much amused. 

First one and then another missed 
and had to sit down. Old Man Hogue 
missed on Money. “I never could get 
money,” he said as he started to his 
seat. 


THE SPELLING BEE 


151 


‘‘Right/' added Bub, and the laugh- 
ter was hesitating in spots, for tales 
were told of Old Man Hogue's finan- 
cial methods, and it was a question 
whether Bub's Right was a judgment 
on Old Man Hogue's assertion or was 
to complete his remark. To every 
one's surprise, Bert missed an easy 
word early in the contest. That Cora 
should have chosen Ike before him 
hurt him keenly and it was not sur- 
prising that he missed, or that almost 
immediately afterwards Cora missed 
a not difficult word. She had scarcely 
chosen Ike when she much regretted 
her choice. “Cora missed to get to sit 
down by Bert sooner," said one of the 
girls. 

Only seven remained when the 
Froggy Corners teacher laid down the 
Webster's Blue Backed Speller and 
with much solemnity produced what 
was known as The New Speller. He 
requested the visiting teacher to pro- 
nounce the words. This visiting 
teacher was tall, slender, spare, with 


152 


JUST STORIES 


very large feet and very prominent 
hips and a remarkably small head. He 
was smooth shaven, lantern jawed, 
possessed of two very small, glisten- 
ing black eyes, and a long lock of hair 
was allowed to fall down over his right 
eye. If he had been going to the 
worst torture of the Inquisition or to 
the marriage altar, he could not have 
taken his place more seriously, sol- 
emnly. He took The New Speller, 
laid it down on the table, and then 
slowly and ceremoniously drew from 
his vest pocket a very large silver 
watch, hunting case, fastened to an 
intricately braided chain of hair. The 
crowd was properly awed. No one 
but school teachers and preachers car- 
ried a watch. A family was in luck if 
it had a clock, kept near the correct 
time by the setting or rising of the sun 
per the schedule in Ayer’s or Hostet- 
ter’s Family Almanac. When the vis- 
iting teacher had gazed solemnly at 
the face of his watch for fifty seconds, 
he deliberately closed the case, put the 


THE SPELLING BEE 


153 


watch in his pocket, and announced 
that as the hour was late he would be- 
gin to use at once the hardest words 
in the book. 

The excitement was positively pain- 
ful. In less than ten minutes only two 
remained standing — Mary Hogue on 
one side and Ike on the other. Mary 
had never been known as one of the 
best spellers, but this night it seemed 
impossible to find any word that she 
could not spell. Old Man Hogue was 
excited as he had never been before in 
all his life — not even when the roan 
shorthorn heifer fell into the “lower 
stock well.” Within the space of three 
minutes he reached into his deep 
trousers pocket, pulled forth the rude 
twist, made by himself, of his home 
grown “long green,” bit off a “chaw”, 
gave it three or four vicious assaults 
with his teeth, and then spat it out, 
not knowing at all what he was doing. 
Oscar leaned so far forward that he 
fell off the desk on which he was sit- 
ting — but no one paid any attention to 


154 


JUST STORIES 


him. Bert was praying — yes, praying 
— and praying as he had never prayed 
before, that Ike would miss. The vis- 
iting teacher was himself so excited that 
he could scarcely pronounce the 
words. The long lock bobbed all 
about his head. And then Old Man 
Hogue’s jaws actually stopped. There 
could be no other such evidence of the 
intensest excitement. 

The visiting teacher began to re- 
sort to trick words. Apparently the 
contest could be ended in only this 
way. He was glad of it, for it gave 
him the opportunity to display the 
learning in which he excelled. He bent 
his body sharply forward, drew back 
his arm holding the book and then 
brought it high above his head and for- 
ward, as he shot the words at Mary 
and Ike. Apparently Mary and Ike 
were the least excited among those in 
the room. Mary was one of those 
people, unemotional, phlegmatic, that 
do their best only when aroused by 
circumstances that produce in others 


THE SPELLING BEE 


155 


the excitement that precludes credita- 
ble effort. Ike was calculating and 
cool always. He had been thinking 
of more than the words pronounced 
by the visiting teacher. Old Man 
Hogue would have at least a quarter 
section for each of his children; Mary 
was not ugly — she was rather pretty; 
Old Man Hogue made every one work 
— Mary would make a good house- 
keeper and would keep enough poultry 
to buy all the groceries and everyday 
clothes; he had spelled correctly sev- 
eral words by accident — he might miss 
the next word given him — 

‘‘There are three words pronounced 
alike,” almost screamed the visiting 
teacher. “One is a concave vessel, one 
is the pod of flax or cotton, and one 
is the stem or trunk of a tree. Spell 
bole — the trunk of a tree,” he thun- 
dered at Ike. 

“B-o-w-1”, said Ike. His proposi- 
tion was masterly, but he spoiled it by 
being too eager — he started for his 
seat just one fatal second before the 
teacher said “wrong!” 


156 


JUST STORIES 


Mary comprehended it all instantly, 
and she knew that the full import of 
it — Ike had sought to gain her favor — 
would be plain to all. She foresaw her 
humiliation — she heard the jokes and 
gibes of her friends for months to 
come. She did not wait to spell the 
word, but with face already scarlet 
and tears in her eyes, she sat down as 
if in an instant all support had been 
snatched from beneath her body. 

And as she sat down all her wounded 
pride, her humiliation, her indignation 
and anger, all burst forth in one short, 
terse, exceedingly emphatic exclama- 
tion — 

“The durned fool!” 















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